Clockwork Heart
by Araidel
Summary: Kurt and Rachel own a dying theater and decide to make one last try at saving their dreams. In order to stage a successful play, they need to hire human actors they can't pay and clockwork actors that Kurt has to repair one by one. But although he'll go to any lengths on this make-or-break performance, there is no way Kurt Hummel is getting up on that stage to perform. steampunk!AU
1. Chapter 1

_Full summary: Kurt and Rachel are on their rocky start of a dream of owning their own theater in Lima. However, after a year of terribly acted plays and no money coming in from audiences, their dream is moments away from being taken from them. The hopeful souls that they are, Kurt and Rachel decide to put on a play by themselves as a last ditch effort to save their dreams and their theater. But as they can't stage a play with just the two of them, they have to find human actors they can't pay and use clockwork actors that are in dire need of repairs. Kurt is determined to replace every broken spring, every cracked jewel, and every exhausted wheel to get the heart and soul of his theater ticking and turning again. But even though he's willing to compromise and waste no expense he can on this make-or-break performance, there is no way Kurt Hummel is getting up on that stage to perform._

_Author's Note: This is my entry to this year's Kurt Big Bang. There is artwork to go along with this story - drawn by my two absolutely incredible artists, freakingpotter and keep-frozen - which can be found (along with a longer and far more detailed author's note) on the masterpost at my LJ sundayrainbows or my tumblr sundaysalvation. Please check out the artwork - both pieces are some of the best art I've seen for ages, and I'm still amazed at freakingpotter's and keep-frozen's work. All the stories written for the KHBB this year are wonderful so please do check them out!_

_I've decided to post my story here too - after my posting date - with one chapter posted a day until it's complete (there are five chapters in total). _

_Alternatively, this story can be read at my LJ (sundayrainbows) or AO3 (sundaysalvation). Links to my LJ and AO3 can be found on my profile._

_Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise, including steampunk machinery and ideas, is mine._

* * *

**Clockwork Heart**

**Chapter One**

* * *

It's one of the iconic moments in theater when everyone, soft-hearted or not, a theater lover or not, will whip out their handkerchiefs and sob silently into them. Some people will bawl with tears, making more noise but they'll always be hushed by their fellow audience members. No one wants the scene disturbed.

Romeo has just drunk the poison on stage and died lying next to Juliet. She's moments away from waking up and seeing her love lying dead next to her but as Romeo is still twitching, she's waiting patiently.

Meanwhile no one is crying in the audience: they are all laughing. Kurt can hear them as if they are laughing right in his ear. He's standing in the wings, right at the front and peering round one of the heavy velvet curtains that he'll soon sweep across the stage to mark the welcomed end of the show. But all he can see are the people watching this fiasco with their hands covering their mouths to catch the laughter, not the tears.

"Oh!" Juliet cries dramatically, sitting up with a sweep of her hands and tossing her long hair over her shoulder in waves. She makes a big show of looking over the stage, even going so far as to shade her eyes when she peers into the audience.

Eventually, after long minutes, she spots her Romeo lying next to her. "Oh!" she cries again and holds out her hands over his shoulder. A shoulder that is obviously moving up and down as the actor breathes.

Kurt is seconds away from banging his head into the wall. He pointed that out weeks ago when this troupe – by far the worst he and Rachel have hired to perform in their theater – was still rehearsing but the actor playing Romeo, an arrogant man by the name of Gavroche, had loudly claimed he was as still as the dead and Kurt should just look harder. He'd also mentioned it again on opening night, a week ago, but his advice had been ignored like the actors couldn't hear him speaking.

"You said he was moving," Rachel hisses into Kurt's ear. She's standing next to him and is probably visible from the audience seats but that's the last thing on either Kurt's or Rachel's mind. She'd been playing the nurse as a fill in for one of the actresses who'd been sick that night and is still wearing the costume, although it's not too much of a change from what she'd be wearing on any other opening night. And while it was true that Kurt would support his friend wholeheartedly, she had been the best performer on that stage tonight by miles.

Kurt nods in reply to Rachel's statement. Of course he was right: he's seen enough plays in his short twenty-five years to know when someone who was supposed to be dead did a terrible job of making it seem like that.

"What's worse," Kurt says, keeping his voice as low as possible. He nods in the direction of the giggling audience members and says, "_they_ know he's moving."

Rachel looks out in the direction Kurt indicated and sighs. Their laughter is obvious now, the snorts muffled by hands are audible in the theater and even Juliet's over-dramatic acting isn't drowning them out. One woman, dressed in a tight corset over a long flowing gown in material Kurt could never afford, is dabbing at her eyes with her husband's handkerchief and has a grin on her face visible from anywhere in the hall.

In fairness to them, Kurt can see the comedy in the supposed tragedy. Terrible acting, ill-timed set transitions, actors forgetting their lines: all ingredients in the perfect slapstick comedy. If it had been Kurt and Rachel's intent to stage a comedic version of _Romeo and Juliet_ then they'd have succeeded with honors. Unfortunately, this is the third acting troupe in a row who claimed they could perform a Shakespeare play and have utterly destroyed the classic.

"Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to die with warm lips- no," Juliet says, forgetting her lines yet again. Kurt closes his eyes in despair: Harmony, the girl playing Juliet, had boasted of her talent and the surety that her Juliet would be the most memorable. Kurt wishes with all his might that her performance will vanish from his memory, because it's definitely memorable but not at all for the reasons she wants. The chortles of the audience grow louder as Juliet shakes her head and starts again. "Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to die make die with a restorative."

Juliet leans down and aims for Romeo's lips but Romeo twitches his head away. Rachel's hand flies out and grabs onto Kurt's jacket sleeve. She squeezes in dismay, narrowly missing grabbing onto Kurt's arm, but Kurt doesn't really notice. He had opened his eyes again as Juliet spoke but wishes he'd kept them shut.

"Did he just turn his face away from her?" Rachel asks quietly, her eyes wide with the horror she can't convey with her tone. Kurt nods with his own horrified expression, transfixed at the so-called acting before him.

"Thy lips are warm. Yea a noise?" Juliet says, sweeping her arm in an arc high over the bed and speaking her line before her cue. A belated thud comes from stage right as whoever was waiting for Juliet's line makes the noise she's supposed to hear. Someone watching actually guffaws.

"O happy dagger," Juliet shouts, stretching over Romeo to reach the dagger that Romeo was supposed to leave in an easy position to find before he drank the poison. "This is thy sheath."

She plunges the dagger against her side: the side of her torso facing the audience so any illusion of the blade killing the actress is lost. As more people lose their control over how loud their laughter is Juliet looks down at which side she's chosen to stab herself in and hurriedly swaps to the side facing the back of the stage.

"We need to do something," Kurt whispers in Rachel's ear. He's taller than her, especially with the extra height his boots give him that Rachel doesn't have in her costume, so he's leaning down to make sure she's the only one who hears. "We can't just keep hiring mediocre acting troupes who don't even deserve to call themselves actors, let alone perform on our stage."

"At least we can cancel any more performances of this," Rachel says, although she's staring at the stage like she's transfixed rather than looking at Kurt as she talks, "I just don't know if we'll have the funds to hire anyone else. You know we were both hoping this performance would be better, and actually start bringing in some money."

Kurt and Rachel have known each other for years, ever since they'd both been outraged at their high school not having a class specifically for drama. At the time, Kurt's dreams for the future had involved saving enough to buy a ticket on an airship and travel across country to New York, whereupon he'd be snapped up by the greatest acting troupe of the time – and when Kurt was fourteen and dreaming, it was the Adam's Apples – and never look back at the tiny town of Lima where he'd grown up.

Dreams change and life gets in the way and a year ago Kurt and Rachel reopened the old theater in the middle of Lima, the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. It had once been the talk of the town and _the_ place to see the latest shows as well as the classics of old. Then the audiences stopped coming; preferring to watch the recitals of the new automatons, self-operating robots that rose from obscurity to the height of fashion. The theater couldn't compete so closed down after decades of success.

Kurt could remember the one and only show he saw when he was four years old in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, a few weeks before it closed its doors forever. It was a musical, once loved by so many that it's considered a classic today. Kurt's dad had been convinced to buy the record and Kurt would play _Wicked_ songs over and over again, until even the neighbors knew the words. When asked why he loved the musical so much, Kurt had said it wasn't about the musical but seeing the magic in front of him.

He'd begged Dad to take him to see _Wicked_ again – "or if not _Wicked_ then another show please Dad" – but the theater had closed by then. There weren't many that were still open, either being all the way in Columbus or the largest theaters in the state, both of which Dad just couldn't afford.

The theater had been dusty and derelict when Kurt and Rachel had opened the doors again but they'd repaired it piece by piece. Kurt had hand-stitched new curtains from fabric he'd bartered down to a reasonable price. He'd persuaded – or rather bribed – the mechanics who worked for his Dad to help with the repairs of the stage, testing their skills as builders as well as mechanics. The theater itself had been re-built from the ground up and during the three months of repairs, it had been the talk of the town.

Whilst at first it had been the appearance of the theater that had stopped the audiences flocking, once it was refurbished there was nothing to stop them. Nothing until audiences, and Kurt and Rachel, saw presented as performances on stage. Troupes would rent out a theater for a few weeks, a month or two at the most. They would stage their play, perform it for the time they had hired out the theater and then move on. The theater owners would then hire another troupe to perform another play.

It was that that wasn't going to well for Kurt. This was the third consecutive acting troupe to produce something Kurt wouldn't pay to see even if it was the last live performance in Ohio. How could he ask for money from patrons to sit through this if he would never do the same?

His dreams had changed so much and a year ago, Kurt had honestly thought things were looking up. He'd been convinced that once the audiences started coming back to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, and started enjoying the performances that he and Rachel could proudly state were theirs, his theater life would take off.  
Maybe some dreams were meant to stay fleeting.

* * *

The following mornings dawns gray and dreary, with the promise of rain if the heavy clouds on the horizon are any indication. Kurt wakes up early, rising with the sun and hurrying across town to the empty theater through the cobbled streets with drunks from the night before lining the path, passed out where they fell.

Kurt unlocks the main door with a brass key, once the symbol for his dreams coming true and now feeling as heavy as iron chains around his neck. He keeps his head down as he enters the theater, letting the heavy wooden door fall back into place with a loud bang that startles pigeons into flight in the square outside. The noise also reverberates around the main hall, bouncing off every wall and making the theater seem larger than it really is.

The theater is made up of a single room to form the front of house with only one storey, at least twenty rows of red velvet folding seats and seven seats on either side of the central aisle making up the stalls. There are boxes lining the walls to sit the important folk but they've never had enough aristocrats come to their theater to fill the boxes. The floor is covered in a thin carpet the same deep red as the seats but flecked with gold threads that shine in the flickering lights when Kurt turns them on in the evening. The walls are painted in golds and bronzes, frescos of clockwork patterns decorating each wall to match the ceiling beams. Kurt had wanted the clockwork patterns adoring the walls and beams and he still looks at the decorating idea as one of his better plans.

The stage itself takes up at least a third of the room, built from solid wood and painted with layers of varnish so it shines in the light just like a beacon. At the moment, the heavy curtains – also made of red velvet and hemmed in the same golden thread that's found in the carpet – are covering the stage but its magnificence is undeniable. Kurt, who has walked down the central aisle towards the stage a hundred times in the last year, still finds his eyes drawn to it.

Unlike most of the other times he has looked at the stage is his theater, however, today Kurt doesn't see the fulfilment of dreams. He doesn't look at the stage and picture all the fantastic places a play or a musical can take someone to. Where once he saw the potential for endless love, a thriving theater and raving reviews, he now only sees the theater as derelict as it had been a year ago and a place where dreams go to die.

He walks down the central aisle towards the stage, the heavy soles of his thick leather boots loudly echoing around the theater. Someone has left a half eaten packet of cracked corn underneath one of the seats, the snack spilling out into the aisle. Kurt steps on one of the abandoned corns, hears the crunch and closes his eyes in despair. It's such a little thing but he's probably ground some of the corn into the carpet and he wanted to spend the morning looking over how much money they've lost from the disaster of the last week.

By the time Kurt's swept all the left-over cracked corn, and the other small pieces of parchment from ripped tickets, away into a corner, the sun has risen and the sounds of the street outside are filtering in through the shuttered windows. Kurt can hear people laughing for joy, talking loudly about their days and how excited they are to start whatever they planned for today.

Kurt wishes he could be as happy.

Another hour has passed before Rachel walks into the theater, her heeled boots clicking off the polished wooden floor of the backstage area where Kurt's footsteps were thuds. Kurt hears her long before he sees her. He's hidden himself in the room he reserved for their paperwork and he's staring at a sheaf of parchment that details everything they've spent on the most recent production. _Romeo and Juliet_ has never cost so much before, he thinks as his eyes trace the costs over and over again.

The parchment that shows how much money they've brought in is half finished but already Kurt knows it won't even remotely cover the cost. It's been barely a week since opening night but last night's performance was the last they'd sold the tickets to already. Kurt had thought that they could save a few shows for last minute tickets in case the performance was so fantastic it was considered a must-see after a week. Now he's seen the play, he knows he'll never be able to sell more tickets.

"How bad is it?" Rachel asks when she finally makes her way to where Kurt is hiding. She's wearing a shawl over her gown, a black and gray dress with the corset hidden. It's the new style of fashion for women these days and that lifts Kurt's sunken spirits: she'd listened to his advice about what to wear that would suit her. It's nice to know his advice is taken once in a while.

"Bad," he says in reply. He sits back in the hard-backed chair and waves his hands over the parchments, inviting Rachel to take a look. She stands on the opposite side of the desk and picks up the list of outgoings for _Romeo and Juliet_.

Her eyes widen when she sees the total Kurt has written at the bottom, in big numbers and underlined twice. Without even reaching for the half-finished list of incomings, Rachel says, "We'll never make this back. Not with what happened on opening night."

"And definitely not with what's happened since," Kurt adds after she falls silent for a moment, her eyes looking over the list again and again. She frowns, adds two numbers together on her free hand and then puts the parchment back on the desk with a deep sigh.

"Kurt," Rachel says quietly, licking her lips and not quite meeting his eyes, "we won't be able to pay our rent again."

The lease they had negotiated in order to open the theater again was just like the lease Kurt's father had on his garage: renting from unsympathetic lawyers who want their money without argument. Their agreement with the lawyers is to pay the rent quarterly and it's the biggest outgoing every three months. Kurt winces every time he thinks about how much of their incoming is spent of renting the theater.

"How many times in a row is that?" he asks, rubbing at the sides of his temple with his thumb and index finger. He's only been awake for a few hours but already he's drained and Kurt can feel the beginnings of a headache coming on.

Rachel frowns as she thinks, tapping the wooden desk absentmindedly. "We paid the rent late last time," she says after a while, then pauses for a moment longer to think, "and late the time before that. But I don't even think we'll be able to make up the money to pay the rent late this time."

Kurt uncrosses his legs, stands up and walks around the table to where Rachel is standing. He opens his arms and she practically falls into them: but Kurt needs this hug as much as she does. It's their dream that's dying, the only thing that had kept Kurt warm on the cold winter nights while he lamented living in such a tiny insignificant town.

"What are we going to do?" Rachel asks in a small voice, muffled against the thick fabric of his suit jacket.  
He has no answers to what they can do now. The last troupe before this one had also been a disaster but Kurt's idea then had been just to hire another troupe. It hadn't worked out and he was fresh out of ideas now.

"Honestly," he says to her hair, "I have no idea."

The moment is shattered by the theater doors opening with a loud bang and the grating laughter of the acting troupe echoing round the hall. Kurt's eyes narrow and his headache rages: it's their fault that he and Rachel are in this mess. They had claimed to be able to stage a production _Romeo and Juliet_ that could rival the professionals on the trans-Atlantic airships. Only to put forward a worse than amateur production that left Kurt and Rachel stuttered to find explanations as to why it was advertised as being so great.

"You've been here for hours, haven't you?" Rachel asks, stepping out of the hug and disentangling their limbs. She looks up at Kurt, sees him nod and says, "You go home. I'll deal with this lot."

Kurt smiles at Rachel, grateful that he doesn't have to speak to this troupe yet again and be ignored yet again. They'd probably view him firing them as a suggestion that they don't have to listen to: like Romeo obviously not being dead in the final scenes; and the confrontation with Romeo and Tybalt needing to take place at the front of the stage, as opposed to right at the back where most people can't actually see what's happening.

"Besides," Rachel says with a smile that's far happier than either of them feel at the moment, "you got to fire the last group. I want to do it this time."

With that she's off, skirts sweeping behind her and Kurt watches her head off to the main hall of the theater. Kurt wishes he had even just a little bit of confidence to know that this will all work out in the end.

* * *

As usual when he's troubled or has things on his mind, Kurt ends up back at his father's garage. It's a large space, filled with all the different types of machinery that could possible need repairing at any one time. Kurt remembers when it was a small space, filled with Dad, Kurt and one or two employees at the most. Now it's a flourishing business, where Dad is one of many mechanics who works here.

Kurt's sat on a high stool, brass legs tarnished from the oil that gets used freely around the place. He's crossed his legs, the buckles of his thigh-high boots glistening in the lamplight. His eyes are fixed on one of the eyelets, the circle of brass polished to a shine and Kurt keeps moving his foot this way and that, making the reflective light bounce off his shoe in patterns.

It's all Kurt can do to just stare at the tiny circle of shining metal on his boot. His mind is whirling as fast of the wheels on a steam train bound for parts of the country unknown. But unlike that train, whose destination is set before they depart from the station, Kurt has no idea where his thoughts are taking him. His ears are full of the sounds of gears turning, the clicks of the clockwork and the murmurings of Dad's employees as they encounter a problem they didn't recognize right away.

All the sounds are familiar, even the smells of the metal and the oil in the garage take Kurt back to a time in his life when everything was so much simpler. When he was young and unafraid of failure: convinced that whatever he chose to do with his dreams, they would play out perfectly.

"When Jack told me my son was here doing nothing but admiring his shoes," Dad's voice breaks through Kurt's reverie and even though Kurt knew he wasn't alone, it makes him jump, "I thought he was exaggerating."

Dad is leaning on the table next to Kurt's stool, his forearms resting on the edge and bracing his body weight. His goggles, well worn and tarnished, are hanging around his neck and there's a faint smudge of grease on his cheek. The smile on his face is warm and a very small part of Kurt unwinds in relaxation.

Kurt shrugs at the accusation that he was staring into space with nothing on his mind. He'd arrived at the garage to find everyone busy with their own work and Dad nowhere to be found. Jack, one of the mechanics who had been working with the Hummels since Kurt was a young boy, had told Kurt to take a seat and he'd sent his Dad Kurt's way when he was free.

There is an open tool box on the table, tiny spanners and thin, sharp pliers haphazardly left on the desk. A half-finished clockwork timepiece is left on the table as well, a magnifying glass on a metal arm lying next to the clockwork and a polishing cloth clutched in Kurt's hand. Kurt had been working on it, fixing the misaligned gears and replacing the pinions to start the clockwork ticking again. It's something complex enough to keep Kurt busy but something he's done for so many years that he knows he can repair a broken clockwork almost with his eyes closed. It had kept him occupied for at least thirty minutes while waiting for his Dad but his thoughts had taken over and his eyes had been distracted by the glinting of the eyelet on his shoe.

Dad indicates the tools and says, "You only work on clockwork pieces like that when there's something wrong, or you want to ask me for something." He reaches into the large pocket on the front of his baggy overalls and pulls out a cloth that is so grease stained the original color is entirely undecipherable. He quickly wipes the excess oil off his hands as he says, "What's on your mind?"

Kurt sighs, looking down at the polishing cloth he's still holding in his hands. When he speaks, it's more to the table and the cloth than to Dad, "Rachel and I are stuck. We've got no money coming in, so much money going out. I don't know how we can get this back. We may even have to sell the theater."

When Kurt speaks the words that have been running around in the back of his mind, he's surprised. He didn't really realize he was thinking that way and he certainly hadn't come to Dad's garage to tell him that he and Rachel were planning on giving up.

Dad looks taken aback at what Kurt's said, as much as Kurt is although he knows he's hiding his own shock better. "I thought you had a new show starting?" Dad asks.

Kurt nods and says, "We did. It was so bad, Dad. We can't put on another performance. We've already made people sit through a week's worth of disaster. No one else will want to come and watch _Romeo and Juliet_ the comedy."

Kurt starts picking at a stray thread in the polishing cloth, feeling like he's looking for straws to grasp in order to keep the theater alive and kicking. He ignores Dad's confused sound, no doubt confused about whether _Romeo and Juliet_ was supposed to be a comedy or not, and says, "Without people to watch the plays at the theater, we'll never cover the funds it costs to put on the plays. And then we'll never make our rent payments."

He looks up at Dad, looking for answers in the one person Kurt has turned to his whole life. "The theater isn't making any money," he says with a shrug, "and dreams don't fill empty stomachs."

Dad sighs deeply and reaches over to clap a big hand to Kurt's shoulder. Kurt is overdressed to be working in a garage, even tinkering at a small clockwork motor like he was doing while waiting for Dad to be free. Kurt is dressed in his best, tight suit pants tucked into his knee-high boots, a white shirt with embroidered collars and cuffs, a waistcoat that looks molded to his torso and his heavy suit jacket. He doesn't think about the potential dried oil, dust or grease getting on his clothes just sitting here. He came to Dad's garage today to hear his Dad say that whatever happens, everything will be okay.

He hasn't felt this helpless for years: not since he was point blank refused from any acting school in New York, let alone in Columbus, and had no other way of breaking into the business. Kurt feels like an airship that's lost its navigation systems, or a balloon that's been left to float without a mooring line. As if he's clockwork that's ticking without a mainspring to wind, just going through the motions with no clear path and no way of finding that path again.

"No chance of finding other people to put on a play?" Dad asks.

Kurt shakes his head. "Even if there are troupes that don't have theaters to perform in," he says sadly, "they won't be good enough to bring in the kind of money that we need. We were scraping the very bottom of the barrel with the last troupe: it can only get worse from here."

What Kurt and Rachel need right now is a miracle. A miracle troupe who has come from New York, or Los Angeles or maybe even from out of the country and are looking to expand their repertoire by performing in a small theater in a town that only really thrives when the aristocrats come to their summer homes from Columbus.

"So you and Rachel have changed plays," Dad asks, and Kurt nods, "and changed troupes. Why don't you just hire the actors yourselves and put on a play of your own?"

For a moment, the only sound that's audible in the garage is the background din of gears, wheels and the murmurings of the mechanics: sounds that Kurt ignores every time he comes in to visit his Dad. He came here today looking for an answer that doesn't involve his dreams crashing down around him. Was it really that simple?

"Hire actors ourselves? Make a troupe of our own?" Kurt asks, turning the situation over in his mind. That's just not done these days. Troupes of actors travel the country and perform in any theater they can. If they are lucky enough or well connected enough, they get commissioned to perform in the larger cities and when they've built a good enough reputation, the troupes are moved to perform on airships. A theater is simply a space that lets the troupes perform and show off their talent – or in the case Kurt's seen, their lack of talent.

And yet, it seems such a simple solution. If Kurt could pull it off, he and Rachel would have a group of actors who would perform any and all plays put on in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. Any play or musical they staged would be acted by the same group of people and they would only get better and better as they worked together. With travelling troupes, a patron would only have to wait for the troupe to come to their city before seeing the play. If Kurt and Rachel's troupe was in a permanent place, audience members would have to travel to Lima in order to see them, if they ever gained such a good reputation that would cause people to want to travel to see them perform.

The tight knot in his stomach begins to unwind. This could work. It could save the theater and give Kurt and Rachel that special _something_ that they need.

"Not one that travels," Dad says, confirming what Kurt was thinking, "Surely there are plenty of actors around. You and Rachel were actors without a troupe: you can't be the only ones."

Kurt shakes his head and says, "We're not. There might not be enough people here, but we can go to Dayton, or maybe even to somewhere like Westerville, to find potential actors."

Dad squeezes Kurt's shoulder and gives him a smile that warms Kurt completely. He came to the garage looking for a potential solution and Dad has done more than just that.

"You feeling better about your theater, kiddo?" Dad asks, his eyes serious even though he's smiling. Kurt nods with a small smile of his own on his lips for the first time in what feels like days. Dad points at the pile of clockwork parts left on the table and says, "Then finish up with that. None of my other guys are half as good at tinkering as you. And you've started so you can finish."

Kurt laughs but dutifully picks up a pair of pliers with the points filed down so they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. He moves the arm of the magnifying glass until the glass is back in position and he can see the wheels he needs to change. Kurt's always been good at tinkering: it comes from growing up in this very garage and having long hours of waiting for Dad to be finished with his days work with nothing to do for himself.

Too often, fixing complicated mechanical motors or clockworks is so much easier than fixing human problems.

* * *

A week has flown by, passed with the theater remaining as empty has it had been a year ago and both Kurt and Rachel travelling from town to town looking for the actors who, like them, are without a troupe but still hoping. Rachel had been as excited by the idea as Kurt had been and had only been stopped from spreading the word that they were looking for actors that very day by the promised rain.

Today is the day of their auditions. Kurt's set up a table at the front of the auditorium, sheaves of parchment, a lamp just for him and Rachel and pens placed there just in case they need to make notes. Kurt's seen the audition process before – he's been the one of the stage, singing a song or reciting a monologue – but he's never actually sat behind the table and judged the potentials before.

"I am so excited," Rachel declares as she hurries down the central aisle to where Kurt is standing. She got a smile on her face that Kurt hasn't seen for weeks, and he's sure he looks as excited as she does. What they are doing is new and both of them can't help but look forward to the day.

Rachel shrugs off her thick shawl and drapes it over the back of her folding velvet chair, takes a seat and then immediately jumps to her feet again. "I've never been on this side of the audition desk before," she says as if in confidence.

"Neither have I," Kurt says. He looks up at the stage, lit by the stage lights and the daylight streaming in from the open window. It does remind him of when he was auditioning for the troupes and for the acting school: and when he was point blank refused from all of them on account of his inability to be cast in anything.

"Do you think we'll get many people coming today?" he asks. They prepared information fliers to announce that they were looking for actors, telling people to come to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion in Lima at ten o'clock. The grand clock in the middle of the square that the theater opens out onto has just struck quarter to.

"I think so," Rachel says, then changes me mind, "I hope so. People seemed interested when we told them right?"  
They had seemed interested. Kurt had travelled with Rachel to Dayton, Cincinnati and Akron and he'd gone to Westerville alone, finding the taverns where actors without troupes were performing for drunken jeering crowds. They had all looked interested about what Kurt had said, and had told him they'd consider coming for an audition.

When the clock strikes ten and no one walked in through the open theater doors, Kurt is still hopeful people will come. He's still standing by the table when the clock strikes quarter past, facing the doors and listening to Rachel as she suggests which plays they should put on first.

"I think we should put on a musical," she says, drawing geometric circles on a loose piece of parchment, "We haven't staged a musical yet and people love musicals. We could even put on Wicked! That's the last musical ever shown here before it closed, and there'll be a certain symmetry to the first musical being Wicked as well."

But Kurt shakes his head. They need to attract the aristocrats and the rich people to their theater. Musicals are the soul of the lower classes. Street bands play iconic songs from classic musicals, drawing crowds and getting the children to dance. Musicals are staged in the winter and in the smaller theaters in Columbus, when the aristocracy are watching the automatons perform dance recitals or watching famed actors act scenes from Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller or Lorraine Hansberry.

That's why they staged Shakespeare plays in the first place: to attract the much needed upper class to fund their theater.

"We still can't stage a musical Rachel," he says, still facing the doors. "We still need the aristocracy to want to see it. We need to stage something that they'll want to watch, and want to pay to watch."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt sees Rachel deflate as her excitement abates ever so slightly. He knows his friend: she loves musicals and there's a part of her that doesn't understand that not everyone does. Kurt is with Rachel wholeheartedly. He loves musicals; loves the iconic songs they produce, the dramatisations of those songs, the way they lift a person's spirit higher than a play ever could. It's an integral part of Kurt's dream, staging a musical he loves in the theater that he part owns. But he also knows that the rich people don't like musicals and won't pay to see them. So for now, at least, they need to pander to the aristocrats' desires.

"The rich and powerful don't like the musicals, Rachel, you know that," Kurt tells her in no uncertain terms. "We can't start staging musicals until we can pay our rent for the next two years, let alone the next few months."

"So another Shakespeare play then?" she asks, her circles taking up most of the parchment now. "Can it be a comedy this time? I don't think I can face another tragedy."

"There's As You Like It," Kurt says, wracking his memory for the long forgotten Shakespeare plays that the aristocracy love, "and Taming of the Shrew-"

"No," Rachel interrupts, finally putting down her pen to look at Kurt, "we're not staging a play that starts with women being independent and ends with them not being that at all. Because I'll be playing the lead and I'm not being Katherina in our first play."

Kurt laughs but holds out his hands in surrender. He's about to list another comedy when someone walks in. She's a thin girl with long brown hair, curled and pinned under a small cap. Her skirts are cut short at the knee to reveal ankle boots and black stockings. Her corset is on the outside of her dress, decorated with bows and strips of ribbon so it's not just bare fabric with metal bones.

"This is for the auditions right?" she asks, striding down the central aisle towards Kurt. She holds out her hand and gives him a piece of parchment where she's written all her details. Kurt nods in reply to her question, smiling widely. This is their first, the person who could kick start their own troupe. He glances quickly down the information she's given. Her name is Marley Rose, she's younger than both him and Rachel and she lives and works in Lima. There are no acting credits amongst her details that go beyond high school, but that's exactly what Kurt is expecting.

Kurt passes Rachel the information sheet, taking his seat and waiting for Marley to climb onto the stage and stand in the central spotlight. She smiles out at them, her hands behind her back and blinks a little, squinting in the bright light.

"Okay," Kurt says, his voice carrying over the small distance to the stage, "please." He gestures with his hand and Marley nods, taking a step closer to the edge of the stage.

"Hi, I'm Marley," Marley says, wincing at the bright light shining in her face, "I know you mainly do plays here but I'd like to do a monologue from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll."

The way she says that – "I know you mainly do plays here" – Kurt wonders what else Marley would have done at her audition. He first wonders if she can sing.

Marley closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and then opens them again, immediately looking angry like Kurt knows this particular monologue should start. "Why, how impolite of him. I asked him a civil question, and he pretended not to hear me. That's not at all nice." she says, then looking into the distant audience like she's performing in the midst of the play and really about to talk to the vanishing White Rabbit. Her voice is quiet but there's a hint of projection: nothing like Rachel but Kurt has no doubt Rachel would quickly teach her to project properly. And if not Rachel, then he could ask his friend Mercedes to teach Marley. Her voice also rises and falls in tones as she acts out her piece – not too long but enough to let Kurt see exactly what she can do – and Kurt's curiosity about singing is piqued.

When Marley finishes minutes later, Kurt doesn't rise – neither does Rachel – and he doesn't clap but he gives Marley a smile that he knows she can see. "Thank you," he says sincerely. It must be a good omen to open their auditions with a good performer. Kurt can see how she's been overlooked for the troupes: she hasn't got a stage presence, even alone on the stage. But she's good, and good enough for them.

"You mentioned you performed that monologue because we mainly stage plays," Rachel asks as Marley starts to walk towards the edge of the stairs leading to the main theater hall. She stops and walks back to centre stage again, "What else would you have performed?"

"I can sing as well," Marley says and Kurt feels his chest swell with pride. Apparently he has an ability to tell when people can sing. And if Marley could sing and act, then perhaps they did have the makings of a musical theater troupe as well. He hardly wanted to be forced to stage plays for his entire career, when musicals were his favorite too.

Marley walks down the stage steps to the main floor when Rachel says nothing more. She pauses by the desk, her hands behind her back again, as if she wants to ask a question. Kurt raises both eyebrows, waiting for her to ask. He doesn't know what she might say so can't exactly pre-empt her question.

She doesn't ask anything. "Thank you," Kurt says again, "We'll be in contact."

Marley nods and leaves the way she came, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. Before she's even out of the theater, Rachel turns to Kurt. She's smiling and her eyes are bright with excitement.

"She's great," Rachel exclaims, loud enough that it's audible at the other end of the main hall, "not perfect, but we can train her. I doubt she'd be heard in the back of this room but it's not like we've got opening night tomorrow."

Rachel's seen the same things that Kurt has about Marley. They've known each other for most of their teenage and adult lives, and have lived together for the last three years, but Kurt can't help but think that it's nice to know she's on the same wavelength as he is. Especially when it concerns their theater.

The problem is that no one else arrives for another hour, and when they do it is two consecutive people who are nothing like Marley. The first is another girl, short with long brown hair pinned to the back of her head, a dress made of material that Kurt knows is expensive and she's holding a parasol in one small hand.

"Sugar Motta," she says as soon as she reaches Kurt and Rachel. Before either can say anything else, Sugar's up on stage, holding her now open parasol over her shoulder and twirling it in what's probably supposed to be an absentminded way.

"I saw your show here last week," she says, almost looking down on the two of them in the front row, "and I knew I could do so much better. So here I am."

She takes a deep breath, seemingly to steel her nerves, and then starts a monologue that Kurt doesn't recognize. He lifts his eyebrows at Sugar, whose arms have opened wide and whose parasol is now dangling uselessly from one hand, and looks to Rachel. Her face is fixed in a blank expression, a look he knows as one where she's trying to appear professional in the face of disaster.

The main problem with Sugar's audition is that it's long. She speaks, in a voice that's not quite monotonous, and speaks and speaks. Rachel holds up her hands at one point, making like she's going to cut her off but she closes her mouth again before she's even uttered a word.

It seems like forever when Sugar lowers her hands, closes her parasol with a snap and looks down at Kurt and Rachel. "Let me know when you want to start rehearsing, okay?" she says and it takes Kurt a moment to realize she's talking to them rather than saying another line in her monologue.

"Um, thank you Sugar," he manages to stammer out, thrown by her abrupt end to the long monologue and her attitude in regards to securing a place in their play. They haven't even decided on a play yet and Kurt knows for sure there won't be a place in it for Sugar.

Rachel waits until Sugar is almost out of the building before turning to Kurt and saying, "Never going to happen."

The second disastrous audition comes in the form of a man who insists he can sing. He stands with his hands linked behind his back, singing a cappella in a voice that booms and cracks as if he's only just started puberty.

"I want to show you that I'm versatile in my acting ability," he had said when Kurt had invited him to stand centre stage and begin his audition. Listening to him try to sing, Kurt wishes he hadn't given him that invitation.

At least he didn't assume they would give him a part in the play, like Sugar had done.

By late afternoon, they have a small collection of parchment sheets separated into two piles. One is the resounding no pile, including the singer, Sugar and a handful of other people who were obviously trying their luck in auditioning for a play without any real convincing talent. The other pile contains the information of the people Kurt and Rachel would like to star in their first play.

It's not a big pile by any stretch of the imagination but there are six names and that's six more people than Kurt and Rachel had in mind at the beginning of the day.

"I think we should go with Much Ado About Nothing," Rachel is saying as she looks over the pile of people they want to include in their first production. She's pulled out the information on Marley and the sheet belonging to a man named Joseph – "Joe, please" – and has placed them in a separate pile.

"We'll need more people to do that one," Kurt says. He's standing again, leaning against the table with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. It's late and the sun is slowing descending, the rays entering the theater at the perfect angle to illuminate the gold flecks in the carpet. Kurt's eyes are on those flecks and he's watching the light dance but his attention is fixed on what Rachel's saying. "We'll have to stage the reduced version, of course, but there are still about fourteen parts."

"We don't have to cast everyone now," Rachel says. She holds up the two parchment sheets she separated and shows them to Kurt. "I was thinking Marley could play Hero. I'm-"

"Taking Beatrice, of course," Kurt finishes for her, smiling fondly at Rachel as she nods. Of course she'll want to go for the part that isn't the lovesick ingénue who has to hide her identity by the end of the play.

"And the other one?"

"I was thinking that Joe could be Benedick, if you aren't..." Rachel says in a voice that drops off to ask an unfinished question.

Kurt knows what she wants to say and he shakes his head. "No. I'm not acting," he says firmly, feeling the familiar twinge of his heart as he says that.

She's quiet for a moment that stretches past the point of a pause simply for thinking. It's like she's waiting for him to say something else, perhaps explain why Kurt still won't take a part in a play in his own theater.

"No one will tell you 'no', this time," she says eventually, her voice quiet in the otherwise silent hall, "You could take the lead and-."

"Rachel, I'm not doing it," Kurt says firmly, cutting her off again. Determined not to see the look of pity laced with concern that she's no doubt giving him, Kurt looks down at the flecks of the carpet again. And then up towards the door as a knock sounds through the hall.

A man is standing in the doorway, partly hidden by the shadows created by the fading light of the day. He's holding a piece of parchment folded into a small rectangle in one hand and Kurt can tell from the parts of him that are illuminated that he's impeccably dressed.

"Are you still holding auditions," the man asks, "or am I too late?"

"Come on in," Rachel says immediately, standing up and turning to face the doorway. The man moves inside and into the artificial light inside the theater. Kurt's breath catches in his throat as he takes in the man, and not just from the combination of clothes that he's wearing. He's wearing calf-high boots made from soft leather over light brown pants, a long blue coat that's too heavy for everyday-wear, a white shirt with a loose collar and cuffs underneath a waistcoat moulded to his torso like Kurt's is and what looks like a tie that's been knotted in a bow tucked underneath the soft collar and hanging below the open top button of his shirt.

Kurt sweeps his eyes up the man as he walked into the theater and down the aisle towards them. From what Kurt can tell the man's shorter than he is, has curly hair styled by a pomade of some sorts and once he's close enough to be seen properly, has big eyes that are the color of a golden clockwork mechanism and seem to draw Kurt in ever so slightly.

He hands Kurt the parchment and waits with his hands pushed into the pockets of his outdoor coat. Kurt drags his eyes from the man only when the rough parchment is pushed into his hands to see his name – Blaine Anderson – that he lived in Westerville but has recently moved to Lima and that he, just like most of the people they've seen today and Kurt and Rachel, has very little experience in the way of professional acting troupes. Blaine does seem to have a bit more experience listed on the parchment but it's all amateur.

Kurt looks back up at Blaine after he's handed the parchment to Rachel. "Please," Kurt says, holding his hand out to indicate the stage. Blaine nods and heads towards the stairs leading to the stage.

Kurt takes his seat again and rests his forearms on the table, feeling rather than seeing Rachel take her seat as well. He's watching Blaine walk: first up the small stairs to reach the stage, where he shrugs off his outdoor coat and leaves it tucked as small as possible by the top of the stairs, and then to the middle of the stage. He's got his back to the audience at first with his hands raised – probably held up to his face – but when he turns around, his arms are by his side. The loose cuffs fall over his hands ever so slightly.  
Blaine gives Kurt and Rachel a small smile and says, "Hi. I'm Blaine Anderson, and I'll be performing a piece from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night."

In the time between Blaine finishes his small introduction and begins his monologue, Kurt's brain whirls with thoughts. Doing a monologue from Shakespeare is hard – Kurt should know as he's seen countless attempts at learning lines from mediocre actors who claimed they can act in the last year – and he can't help but lean forward in his chair with anticipation. He's also wondering which monologue Blaine will be performing. Mainly whether he'll chose the easiest and most common piece: Duke Orsino's famous "if music be the food of love" speech.

"This is the air; that is the glorious sun; this pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;" Blaine says, acting with his hands to indicate the air around him, a fictitious sun in the sky and a pearl he's supposedly holding. Kurt lets go of the breath he didn't even know he had been holding. This piece was something completely different, a piece by Sebastian if Kurt knew his Shakespeare – which he did.

As he watches Blaine interact with invisible people in the audience, or on the stage, Kurt realizes that he's good. No: Blaine is really good. He's got a stage presence that commands attention and he's delivering his monologue practically flawlessly. No one can be perfect of course. But he's an absolute must have in their play. Kurt looks at Rachel out of the corner of his eye and sees a look on her face that he knows well but hasn't seen in a while: she's impressed. And that means she's probably thinking that same thing as Kurt is about having Blaine be a part of their new acting troupe.

Kurt also can't help his eyes trail up and down, watching Blaine as he acts his monologue. His clothes are tight enough to frame him body and Kurt notices the way his chest fills the shirt, pressing against the sheer white material of the shirt and the thick black cloth of the waistcoat. He has to shake his head twice to clear those thoughts, as pleasant as they are, because he should be listening to Blaine's audition.

When he finishes, it takes all of Kurt's self control not to stand and applause. He manages it, barely, but can't help the wide grin that has spread on his lips.

Before walking down the stairs to the main floor of the theater, Blaine takes a moment to slip his coat back on. He walks down the few wooden steps with his hand pressed against the right side of his chest and his breathing heavy for a monologue, the look on his face hopeful.

"Thank you Blaine," Rachel says immediately, before Kurt has even opened his mouth to say the same thing, "We really enjoyed that." Blaine ducks his head but Kurt – who won't admit that he's watching intently – sees the smile of gratefulness on his lips.

This time Kurt gets his words in before Rachel speaks. "We'll let you know as soon as possible, Blaine," he says. Blaine looks up and Kurt stares into those golden colored eyes again. "Thank you for coming in."

Blaine nods once before replying with his own thanks and a farewell. He leaves with his hands buried into his coat pockets and his shoulders upright, drawing Kurt's eyes down the line of his back. Kurt watches him leave and only when Blaine's silhouette has vanished through the doorway does he turn away.

Rachel is flicking through the pile of parchments in the yes pile, sorting them into single sheets spread out over the table top. The larger pile of rejections is haphazardly lying on the floor by Rachel's feet. Once she's finished separating those parchments into the order she wanted, Rachel reaches over and takes hold of Blaine's information, adding it to the array.

"So," she says, pointing to the top row where Blaine's, Marley's and Joe's information lie, "we have our four main characters. I'll be Beatrice, and then Blaine can be Claudio, Marley can be Hero and Joe can be Benedick." Rachel looks at Kurt for his approval.

He hasn't seen Much Ado for a few years but he knows the story. Two sets of lovers; one couple who fall in love right away and one couple who have to go through their hate for each other before being forced to admit their love. Trickery and betrayals that are made good run throughout and while it's hardly Kurt's favorite play, it's a good play to stage to attract the aristocracy and earn enough to keep their theater open.

Only once he nods his approval at her selections of the characters, Rachel points at a few more of the parchments on the table. Kurt casts a glance at the information as well, knowing that they'll need at least fourteen more people to cast in the play to cover the roles in an abridged version. There is no way they can stage the full play with the small amount of talented actors who auditioned today.

Kurt taps one parchment. The man who had handed this to Kurt was older than all the other performers but he had impressed Kurt with his willingness to work for two young starters in the world. He certainly hadn't faltered when seeing that he was auditioning for two people in their early twenties.

"This man," he peaks at the parchment again to read the name written at the top, "Bryan Ryan, could be Leonato," Kurt offers, naming the father of Hero and probably the only part that demanded an older actor. All the other parts can be explained away if the actors are younger than the audience anticipates.

Rachel picks up the parchment that Kurt chose and moved it to one side, a part of the table that she'd cleared to store the information of people they'd cast already. They end up choosing three more of the characters then and there, bringing their total up to eight and their play looking more and more likely to happen.

What Kurt sees when he looks at the table and the parchments laid out on top of the varnished wood is a start. A shaky start, where any person might turn down their part or leave unexpectedly or even be far less talented than they appeared today but a start nonetheless. After the despair of a few weeks ago, Kurt can now feel his heart lift and the excitement of staging a play – excitement that had long faded since seeing the terrible performances the so-called professional troupes would stage – fizzing through his veins.

"Rachel," he says in a low voice that carries over the sounds of joy and life floating in from the open theater doors from the darkening streets outside. "I think we can do this." Kurt looks at his friend, his business partner and fellow dreamer, and continues, "I think this will work."

The look on Rachel's face is one of excitement, as if she's presenting in a visual way what Kurt is feeling. What they are doing is something fresh, something new and it's something that will save their theater.

* * *

Kurt walks into the theater the next morning with a roll of parchment tucked underneath one arm and a smile on his face that has been present there for months. There's a light on the horizon and while he's still far away from reaching it, Kurt finally feels that he's on the path to get to that coveted light.

He spent all the previous night working on the presentation he'll show Rachel as soon as she comes in. Taking their decisions about who would be playing which character in the play and the throwaway comments both of them had said throughout the day about how they would put the sets together, Kurt had sat down at the tiny table in his apartment – where he worked and ate because there is no room for two different tables – and put all of the separate pieces together to form the puzzle of Much Ado About Nothing.

The table set up in front of the first row of well-worn velvet seats is still set up so Kurt unfurls the parchment on top, weighing down the corners with ink pots and their lids. He's no accomplished director or producer but Kurt can close his eyes and picture what he wants to see on stage as easily as he can imagine a new outfit out of the old pieces he's got in his wardrobe.

He's kept the setting in Messina but changed the time of the play to modern day. There are rolls of canvas backgrounds in the backrooms of the theater, intricate paintings of villas, gardens and rolling hills set against sunny days unlike what would be found in Ohio. Besides, if they were to change the setting then Kurt would be sitting there shouting out the new location every time an actor or actress forgot themselves and said Messina in the play.

Suddenly Kurt stopped, the smile on his lips growing ever so slightly. He wouldn't have to do that. The people they were going to hire weren't professionals but they would be miles better than the so-called acting troupes. They would be likely to remember their lines, even if it involved a change of location.

Kurt looks over the parchment again, seeing his list of characters and the actors he and Rachel chose to play them, the setting and which of the canvas background paintings they'll need to find in the backrooms, a few of the costumes that he thinks they'll need to find in the markets rather than in their growing wardrobes of new costumes and even a drawing of how Kurt thinks the stage should look when the curtains open.

Behind Kurt, one of the doors to the theater opens and then whoever steps in closes the door behind them. Thinking it's Rachel, Kurt calls out to her without looking away from his parchment presentation of Much Ado, "Rachel, you know we decided that that Brody Weston should play Don Pedro? I was thinking last night that he should actually be Don John-"

He turns around and rather than seeing Rachel walking down the aisle towards him, he sees Mr Schuester. He's the representative for the lawyers who technically own the theater, and by far the last person Kurt wants to see right now. He doesn't want his joyous mood brought down because he'll have to explain why they'll be late on their rent payment once again. Kurt had forgotten that their rent payment was due: ever since his talk with Dad a week ago, Kurt's been thinking about how to stage a play themselves and how to search for amateur actors who had all but given up. The thought of their rent hasn't crossed his mind once.

Mr Schuester almost looks surprised to see Kurt but he covers it up with a small upturned flick of the corners of his lips that Kurt guesses is supposed to be a smile that might be aimed at putting Kurt at ease. It doesn't work.

"Kurt, hello," Mr Schuester says. He's holding a briefcase in one hand and has his top hat tucked underneath his other arm. With his briefcase, he gestures to the table and Kurt's parchment. "Planning another play?" he asks, his face filled with polite curiosity.

Kurt nods and straightens, although he doesn't step too far away from his creation. He tugs sharply on the bottom of his fitted waistcoat. His stomach, which had been filled with nothing but the feelings of joy and excitement and the toast he'd had for breakfast, is now twisted in knots with nerves.

"Yes," he says after a moment of silence, "we're going to stage Much Ado About Nothing this time."

Mr Schuester nods and says, "Yes, I saw Romeo and Juliet didn't last long." Kurt's not too sure how to respond to that so he doesn't reply and silence once again fills the room where silence should never be found. After a moment, Mr Schuester gestures against to the parchment, "I've always liked Much Ado so do let me know when opening night is."

"Of course," Kurt replies. His fingers are twisting a chain hung on his waistcoat pocket, threading the thin golden links through his fingers and then twisting the metal around each other. "Can I help you, Mr Schuester?"

Mr Schuester gives a heavy sigh, gesturing to the table for a third time. "Can I use the table? I had hoped to do this in your office but," he asks, murmuring his words. Kurt nods and carefully caps the ink pots before rolling up the parchment. Mr Schuester first lays his hand on the corner of the table, then puts the briefcase in the centre and pops it open.

"Your rent payment is due this week, Kurt," Mr Schuester says, finding a file and perusing the first page inside. "I know you were unable to make the payments on time last quarter, and the quarter before that but-"

"Mr Schuester," Kurt interrupts, twisting the chain even harder now. As if he can spin his nerves onto the chain using some imagined spindle. "I'm afraid we still won't be able to make the full rent payment this quarter."

Mr Schuester simply looks up at Kurt with an unchanged expression: one of discomfort. It's clear as if Kurt had written it with quill and ink that Mr Schuester didn't expect Kurt to be able to pay the rent. He's here as the messenger to collect what he can and then leave with Kurt's hopes and dreams in the same bag.

He slowly puts the files down and takes out a fresh page of parchment. Without asking, he uncaps one of Kurt's ink pots and dips his quill in the black ink inside. "How much of the rent do you think you can pay now?" he asks.

Kurt swallows hard. Last night he and Rachel had briefly discussed how much money would be spent on hiring their actors, buying any sets and purchasing fabric for costumes. Kurt had reduced that price when he'd thought about it at home, using his parchment presentation to detail how much they could reuse from previous plays stored in the backrooms. But they would still need most of their income to hire the actors and as Kurt had forgotten about it, he knows Rachel would have forgotten about their rent too. That will each up into their funds, if it doesn't drain it completely.

Mr Schuester shakes his head when Kurt lists a percentage. It'll mean they pay less than a quarter of the rent but will still have enough money to hire their actors. "I'm sorry Kurt, but that's enough to cover your rent to the end of next week. I'll need at least half of the rent to be able to allow you to wait a little longer."

"Mr Schuester, we've got very little income at the moment," Kurt pleads. He hates pleading but his mind is blank of a solution. He has no idea where Rachel is but she won't be any more help. What Kurt needs is the theater roof to open up and a deity he doesn't believe in to pour cash through the hole and into Kurt's hands. "If we could have more time to make up this rent then-"

"I can give you until next quarter Kurt, if you pay me half now," Mr Schuester interrupts. "But then I'll have to have the other half, and the next quarter's rent in full."

Kurt's hope fall and any joy he felt mere minutes ago has been forgotten. His face falls too because his hands are tied. They can pay half the payment but that'll cost them nearly all of their funds to hire their actors. And what actor – amateur or professional – will want to work for nothing? Yet it's either their actors or their theater.

A play can't be staged without anywhere to show it.

A heavy hand rests on Kurt's shoulder. "I'm sorry Kurt, but I can't accept anything less," Mr Schuester says in a falsely comforting voice, "Maybe things will turn around for you in the next few months?"

Kurt's reply is nothing more than an attempt at a smile. Now they have almost no funds to pay their actors, he has no idea how that will happen.


	2. Chapter 2

**C****lockwork Heart**

**Chapter Two**

* * *

The marketplace of Lima is best described as a maze, where one wrong turn will lead to a part of the market that's never before been discovered. Kurt loves it. It's a bustling place that's full of life, bursting with noises and it's possible to find absolutely anything within the shops that line the cobbled streets. If he's being honest, the marketplace is one of the places he loves the most, second to his Dad's garage and the theater.

The shops are built with sturdy walls and brightly colored awnings cover each door, with the doorframes and lintel made of brass or bronze-coated steel. The window panes are brass as well, glistening on sunny days out of buildings made from dark stone stained from soot. Some of the shops are mobile, their large wheels stopped with wedges decorated as much as the doors are. Brass, bronze and copper are everywhere and even outside the metalwork streets there's a faint smell of metal that gives the market a sense of life. The bridge with the tracks for the cross-country trains is built over the market, a great steel structure with pillars made intricately with bars and large bolts in an imperceptible pattern to decorate an otherwise bland landmark.

When a train travels through the heart of the city or an airship flies far overhead, the sounds of the market are drowned out. Now that there's no transport, people are shouting the deals they are offering, customers are exclaiming with glee over a new product and street bands are performing for any change the shoppers would be prepared to spare.

Rachel and Kurt walk further into the market streets, away from the direction they need to take in order to see their final potential actor but neither of them mention it. Without speaking, they change their next destination to an eating house in the centre of the market, overlooking the square and the water feature that was built there nearly a hundred years ago. Kurt loves it, just a still pool surrounding a statue, and has wished on a coin to throw into the pool every time he passes it. The statue itself is a metal sculpture of the intricate insides of clockwork, made from steel and brass and the reflection of the sun off the water dances across the metal surface of the dials, pinions, wheels and ratchets.

When they reach the main square, the sounds of music reach their ears. It's coming from the eating house that is their destination, a large place called The Rising Star where the dining table spill into the square and there are already people milling around with tankards of ale in their hands. Before he even turns towards the entrance to the eating house, Kurt reaches into the pocket of his black pants and pulls out a copper-plated steel penny. He heads to the pool without a word, leaving Rachel waiting just outside the door.

Kurt closes his eyes tightly and tightens his fingers around the coin nestled in his palm. His wish in the past has always been the same: to be able to live out his dream on the stage. Well that dream is hanging by a thread at the moment. He had wished on a coin before signing the lease to their theater: maybe wishing on one now will help their fraying chance at redemption.

"Luck," he murmurs, quiet enough so no one eavesdrops, "we really need some luck."

He repeats his wish three times, his voice getting quieter with each repetition and then tosses the coin into the fountain. His eyes open when the coin splashes into the pool, the gurgle of the water falling back into place marking the last he sees of his penny.

Rachel's waiting for him when he turns back to the Rising Star. He smiles at her, jogging to reach her again, his thick leather boots hitting the cobbled stones with a dull thud. She loops her arm through the crook of his arm when he finally draws level with her and together they walk into the eating house.

It's dark inside but the servers have lit oil lamps in every corner of the main taproom and there's a small round oil lamp, the key to turn it on or off attached, on every table. Kurt heads straight for the back of the eating house, to the small high tables with the high chairs positioned in front of a stage. On the stage are the musicians creating the smooth music audible outside and the singer whose melodious voice is one of the main features of the eating house.

Kurt takes a seat at the table closest to the right side of the stage, furthest from the musicians, and watches at the singer, trying to catch her attention. Rachel takes her seat after a moment, having taken time to order her skirt to fall properly into place once she's seated. Only when Rachel has taken her seat does the singer turn in their direction. Her eyes light up and crinkle into a smile even while she's singing, showing not only that she's seen her friends but that she's happy to see them.

"I just knew this was the perfect place for Mercedes," Rachel mutters to Kurt after Mercedes has turned back to the other members in the audience to continue her song.

Kurt nods but doesn't say anything in reply. He's always loved to listen to Mercedes sing, her voice powerful and tuneful, able to stop someone in their tracks and make them simply listen. She has had aspirations to travel across country, singing for her fare in the airships and eventually performing for the rich and powerful in cities like New York or Los Angeles. At the moment at least, she's taken a job in the Rising Star to give her a start on that journey: or that was the plan three years ago.

They've been friends for years and while Kurt likes having his best friend around, he wishes she was on the path to her dream. Mercedes more than deserves it. She's been working at it even harder than he has been working at his, and because his is on the verge of implosion he wants Mercedes to succeed more than usual.

A server arrives with a tray tucked under one of her arms, her skirt tied up to reveal thigh high boots and her petticoat torn in what's supposed to be a fashionable way. It simply looks like she's taken a barber's shaving blade to it and not quite managed to get a straight line. She smiles in a friendly way at them and speaks in a low voice to not disturb Mercedes' singing and that wins her points in Kurt's book, paying back the ones she lost for her outfit.

Kurt makes sure to order a drink of lemon water although with the two glasses of gin and tonic water for him and Rachel, ignoring the curious look their server gives them. By the time she returns with their drinks and a bowl of dried fruit, Mercedes has finished her song and joined them at the table. The server glances at Mercedes with understanding on her face and then sets the third glass down in front of her.

"What brings you two here?" she asks, taking a long sip from her drink. Her eyes move from Rachel to Kurt, both wearing morose expressions that are so unlike them.

Rachel sighs and speaks first, reaching out to twist the glass in a circle rather than lift it to her lips to drink. "We're in trouble, Mercedes," she says frankly, "you know all the plays we've been putting on at our theater have been disasters-" Mercedes nods "-so we decided to put one together on our own. But we've got no money for that and now we've got no actors."

After Rachel had finally come into the theater once Mr Schuester had cleared almost all of their remaining funds, she and Kurt had sat in their office to work out if they could still stage a play. By scrapping all complicated ideas and keeping the setting in modern day Italy, they had calculated that they could still put on the performance. Of course, they wouldn't be able to pay their actors and actresses until after tickets began to sell.

They had made their way through Lima the past few days, knocking on each and every door to ask, plead and beg the few people who auditioned to still perform. All had slammed the door in their faces. The latest and penultimate person who auditioned had at least heard Kurt and Rachel out fully before turning them down. Marley, who lived only a few streets away from the Rising Sun, had also offered her help if they could pay her, but Kurt had expected her to turn them down in favour of a paying job. Especially after hearing the declines of all their other potential performers.

Mercedes only sighs. "What happened to all your cash?" she asks.

"Rent," Rachel replies. Now she pulls the glass towards her and takes a long sip. Kurt follows suit, grimacing as the bitter taste of gin fills his mouth. He still takes another long drink, and another until the glass is empty and he signals the server to bring another glass.

"And you can't just stage a two-man play?" Mercedes asks a few minutes later. Her backup musicians have taken over the background music in the tavern now, playing a muted but upbeat tune that has the patrons talking louder and signalling bartenders to pour drinks faster.

Kurt shakes his head before Rachel can reply. "I'm not acting," he says with an air of finality. He looks up from the stained wood of the table just in time to see Rachel and Mercedes exchange a look. He frowns, eyebrows snapping together, and says, "I'm serious. I'm not jeopardizing the play and our theater just because I want to act."

In unison, Mercedes and Rachel reach out and cover both his hands with one of their own. Rachel's thumb moves over the back of his palm in a way that is supposed to be comforting: it doesn't do much to comfort Kurt but it's not unwelcome either.

"No one will judge you this time, Kurt," Mercedes says in a voice that carries to the other two at their table only. "It's your theater and your play."

"I know!" Rachel nods at Mercedes, then looks at Kurt, "I told him just that. And you are good Kurt-"

Kurt takes his hands out of his friends' hold, dropping one to his lap and holding the other up to interrupt Rachel mid-sentence. "Can we not?" he asks, although he doesn't give either Rachel or Mercedes a chance to reply. Sometimes the same platitudes of support grow tiresome and detrimental. Instead he looks at Mercedes and says, "I want to hear about how your singing is going."

Mercedes is in the midst of telling Kurt that she was close to having enough money to buy a ticket on an airship direct to Los Angeles when the door to the tavern opens and in walks four people, two men and two women, who cause everyone already inside to stop talking at once. Kurt, along with everyone else, turns to look at the door and watch the newcomers as they walk further inside the tavern and are then waylaid by the owner, who actually bows to the two men at the head of their small group.

They are aristocracy, the rich folk who live in big cities like Columbus and come to small towns like Lima for the summer season. Every inch of fabric on their well-dressed bodies, every stitch holding the clothes together, takes Kurt's breath away. Kurt's painstakingly handpicked wardrobe, something he's built up over the years and is proud of, costs about as much as the handkerchief clutched in one of the ladies' hands.

The men have coats with large lapels, buttons that shine as if they are gold and fabric that is clearly real velvet. Their shirts are white and the collars are rigid with the amount of starch in them. Kurt knows his fabric and the silk cravat, dyed in a multitude of colors, costs more than the jacket and pants Kurt is wearing right now. The women are dressed in equally expensive clothes, dresses where the corset is sewn into the bodice, small top hats with silk veils covering their foreheads, parasols to shade them from any sun and keep their skin from burning.

They are the people, four of the people, who Kurt and Rachel need to impress in order to save their theater and their dreams.

"What are they doing here already?" Kurt asks Mercedes, keeping his voice to a low murmur. There's almost a reverent silence in the taproom now, as opposed to the boisterous atmosphere of the regular customers only moments ago. "It's only the beginning of the season."

"The rich folk have been steadily trickling in over the last week or so," Mercedes says, "They all go out to their summer houses but I've seen so many walking through the marketplace. They probably wanted to come to Lima to see how the _other_ people live."

The aristocrats pass the taproom, and are lead by the owner to the stairs at the very back of the hall. Kurt knows the stairs lead to a private parlor used just for this purpose. Mercedes has told them countless stories of the aristocracy allowing her to serenade them while they eat and talk over her singing. But he can't keep his eyes off them, or their clothes that display their never-ending wealth, as they pass. Rachel even sighs in longing next to him.

The door eventually closes behind the rich and it's like someone flicks a switch to turn the gears and start the clockwork on a machine. The noise level rises and the customers in the taproom turn back to their conversations like they had never been disturbed.

"One day," Rachel says after a moment, none of them resuming their conversation after the aristocrats disappeared like the others around them, "I hope they'll be stopping at our table and complimenting us on our performances, whether play or musical or concert."

Mercedes, who is supposedly used to interacting with the rich people of their society, nods to Rachel and glances up at the private parlor hiding the aristocrats. "I know what you mean," she says quietly. Then a server arrives at their table to tap Mercedes on the shoulder, whisper in her ear and gesture a few times from the stage to the bar and back again.

Mercedes nods to whatever the server had said, picks up her glass and tips the last of the drink into her mouth. "I've got to get back to work," she says, then walks around the table to first hug Rachel and then Kurt. She rubs her hands up and down Kurt's shoulder blades for a few seconds before letting him go and taking her place on the stage again.

Rachel and Kurt watch for a few minutes, saying nothing and smiling widely as their friend's powerful voice fills the room. After Mercedes had finished her first song, Rachel turns to Kurt and says, with surprising sincerity in her eyes, "Do you think we will ever get to a point where the aristocracy are vying for tickets to our plays?"

"I hope so," Kurt says honestly. He can't see it happening right now, but he really hopes so. Finishing his own drink, he stands. "Shall we go visit the last person who auditioned?"

"I think I just want to stay here right now," Rachel says, "I like listening to Mercedes sing, and I can dream that someone from upstairs will come down, see me and recognize me as one of the owners of the theater and tell me that they want to invest a lot of money in our theater." She looks up at Kurt when he doesn't sit down again. "Or, did you want me to come with you?"

Kurt shakes his head. "You stay here," he says. He picked up the parchment when they'd written and subsequently crossed off all the names of the people who auditioned for them. The last one is written at the bottom of the page, his address in Kurt's neat handwriting next to it. "I'd rather get the last painful rejection over with."

Rachel's laugh follows him out of the tavern and into the bustling square. The day is nearly over and Kurt can see that the crowd moving through the market streets has changed from shoppers to overworked tired employees stumbling home or out to find a drink and maybe some company for the evening. The streetlamps are being lit as Kurt walks by, smiling at the people employed to light each and every oil lamp down the cobbled streets. In the light cast by one of the oil lamps, Kurt reads the final name on the list.

_Blaine Anderson_. He lives a few streets away from Kurt's apartment, although Kurt knows that the street Blaine lives on is a nicer one than his. It is convenient though: he can just go home and collapse on his tiny couch in despair after Blaine turns him down too. Maybe he'll have another epiphany about how they'll save their theater on the way home.

The door to Blaine's apartment building is open when Kurt gets there, a thick wooden door with iron bolts and straps along the back. There are three lamps on the bottom floor when Kurt walks inside but as the shadows are long and numerous, he keeps the main door open so that the dying day's light can illuminate a little more of the entrance hall.

Kurt hurries up the brass winding stairs, his footsteps echoing around the staircase to a deafening degree. He checks the parchment twice, once for the floor and once for the apartment number, before he's standing outside Blaine's door. It's non-descript, a plain wooden door with the number six in iron at Kurt's eye-level. It could be the front door to Kurt's apartment.

He knocks twice, bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation. He knows what he has to say but having failed to convince any of the other people who auditioned for them, he has little faith that what he has to say will work at all.

Kurt hears shuffling behind the door and has enough time to swallow the clump of nerves that have taken root in his throat before the door opens and Blaine's golden eyes peer out from the crack. Blaine must have recognized him because he opens the door fully and gives Kurt a smile that lights up his face and his eyes.

"Hi," he says in a joyous tone, "Kurt, it's good to see you. I didn't expect you so soon."

Kurt shrugs with a sheepish look on his face. If things had gone to plan then Kurt would still be standing here, probably today, to tell Blaine that he was being offered the part of Claudio and he and Rachel would like Blaine to start rehearsals the very next day.

"Can I come in?" Kurt asks, gesturing to the apartment behind Blaine, lit by oil lamps and a small fire that seems unnecessary in the early spring weather. Blaine nods and stands aside, holding the door open while Kurt walks inside.

Blaine waves his hand in the direction of his couch after he's shut the door and Kurt takes the offered seat without a word, crossing one leg over the other. As usual, the eyelets in his boots catch the light from the fire. Now he's inside the apartment, Kurt can feel the spring chill that the fire is desperately trying to fight.

"Sorry about this," Blaine says, noticing where Kurt is looking and he moves to slide a soot-covered iron grate in front of the fireplace. He rubs his hands together to get rid of the dust over the fireplace and turns around to look at Kurt. "My apartment doesn't warm up until June so I need the fire."

"It's okay," Kurt replies, his voice low. Blaine's dressed differently to how he was at his audition: still in dress pants but these are far looser and held up by suspenders, a white shirt with his cuffs buttoned at his wrists and a tie hanging undone around his neck. His feet are bare and Kurt doesn't actually know why he notices that. This is the second time he's ever seen this man but seeing how comfortable he is right now, and seeing him dressed smartly for the audition, is something Kurt likes.

"Um, Blaine," Kurt says after a moment of listening to the small fire crackle, "I had wanted to come here with good news. Rachel and I, we wanted you to be in our play. To be Claudio in_Much Ado About Nothing_."

He says all this to the metal grate and when he looks up Blaine has a look of elation on his face. His eyes are shining – actually shining – in the firelight and he's standing just that little bit straighter. Kurt sees the hope in his face and body language and hates himself for having to burst Blaine's bubble.

"But," he says and he watches as Blaine's shoulders slump ever so slightly, "we're in a bit of trouble with the theater."

Blaine walks away from the fire to take a seat on the opposite end of the couch to Kurt. He rests his hands on his knees, leans closer and catches Kurt's eyes. "What kind of trouble?" he asks.

"Financial," Kurt says bluntly. He and Rachel had danced around the problem at the beginning when they were asking their potential actors to work for nothing for a few weeks but that hadn't softened the blow at all. It was best to deliver the bad news in one go. "We have very little money in the theater at the moment, and it's going to affect our production."

"Did you have enough funds before," Blaine asks, "when you asked for actors to audition?"

Kurt nods, dropping his eyes to Blaine's hands rather than keep eye contact with his colorful and expressive eyes. "We had enough, but-" he sighs "-rent, lawyers, unsympathetic rent collectors."

Kurt looks up again to see Blaine nodding. Any trace of the hope in his face is gone now. "So you aren't staging your production anymore?" he asks and for the first time that day when seeing the potential actors, Kurt's taken aback. He hadn't expected Blaine to ask that question, where everyone else had immediately jumped to the correct conclusion that they couldn't afford to pay them anymore.

"No," Kurt says hurriedly, "we're still trying to put the play on. We just can't pay anyone who'll star in it. Not just yet, at least."

Blaine frowns and he looks as confused as Kurt feels. There's a glimmer of hope bubbling away in his heart at Blaine's immediate reaction – so surprising in the wake of today's disastrous attempts to persuade the potential actors to still work with them. A small voice in the back of Kurt's mind is telling him to ignore that hope and that once he and Blaine untangle their crossed wires then Blaine will refuse as well.

"So, you are still staging the play," Blaine says, slowly and obviously trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind, "but you can't pay us yet. Until after opening night, I guess?" Blaine looks up for clarification and Kurt stares into those amber eyes for a few more seconds than necessary before nodding.

"Okay. I'll do that."

"Really?" Kurt blurts out, excitement bubbling through his voice. He's stunned and the hope that he's all but squashed comes bubbling back up. After all the disappointment, having something go right is almost a miracle. One person – making two actors in total when including Rachel – won't make the play but it's a start, and Kurt wants to grab it with both hands and hold on tight.

Blaine nods and gives Kurt a smile, no doubt in response to Kurt's excitement. "I've always wanted to star in a play," he says with a shrug, which isn't really an explanation as to why he doesn't mind not getting paid, but Kurt doesn't question anything else. He's almost afraid that if he asks then Blaine will change his mind.

It's something Kurt couldn't have predicted: especially not after being rejected over and over today. But as Kurt smiles at Blaine, and as Blaine smiles back, he's grateful it wasn't the last painful rejection he'd thought it had been. And at least they'll be able to stage a two-man play now, if they can't conjure up another solution.

A solution that really will need to be a miracle. 

* * *

Kurt arrives at the theater the next day a few hours after the sunrise. It's the middle of spring so the morning dew glistens on the cobblestones and the air still carries the touch of winter's cold. But Kurt doesn't mind the chill in the air and he almost bouncing as he unlocks the doors to the theater and walks inside.

He really hadn't expected Blaine to say yes to acting for them without being paid. Actually that wasn't strictly true: before they had visited the potential actors, Kurt had foolishly thought that they wouldn't mind have a stalled payment and only once they'd had almost a hundred percent rejection had his optimism dimmed. So it had been a pleasant and greatly appreciated surprise when Blaine had said that he did want to act for them.

It really isn't a fix but it's a start. Perhaps if the other people heard that one person was prepared to act for nothing until opening night, then more people would knock on their door and tell Kurt that they too still wanted to be in the play.

The scenario runs through Kurt's mind as he makes his way backstage, intent of finding one of the large canvas paintings of a rural landscape that Rachel had found when they first searched through the back rooms of their theater. It's what he has in mind of the main setting of their play, especially now they are simply keeping it set in modern-day Italy to keep the cost down.

The backstage area of the theater can be described as a treasure trove or a dumping ground. It is the place where old sets and unusable costumes came to rest when the theater had been opened before. Over the past year, Rachel and Kurt have spent time sorting through the broken sets, ripped costumes and boxes filled with junk but they have barely scratched the surface.

Kurt's footsteps echo through the room, which is almost a third of the size of the front of house but far more cluttered. Some of the piles of old sets reached the ceiling and could topple at any moment, should Kurt walk into the wrong supporting old set. He grabs an oil lantern that had been hanging on a hook right next to the door, takes a moment to light to small wick and then walks around the nearest pile of trash to find what he's looking for.

Kurt doesn't know exactly where Rachel stored the canvas background paintings. They haven't actually used them yet, as Rachel much preferred to hoist the large detailed sun and the small but equally intricate moon high over the stage to tell the audience members what time of day it is. If Rachel had her way, Kurt thinks as he narrowly skirts a broken beam that used to support a free-standing set, the canvas sets would be hung as actual paintings in the front of house and never used as actual sets.

He finds them in a box towards the back of the room, the lid covering the box but not sealed or nailed into place. After a hunt through the many canvas rolls, many of which Kurt hadn't realized they'd owned, he finds the one he's looking for.

Carefully placing the oil lamp on top of the box, Kurt unfurls a small part of the large canvas just to check he's chosen the correct painting. A smile comes to his lips as he takes in the small segment of the scene before him.

It's a small snapshot of a town just like Lima, including the railway bridge built high over the building and supported by thick steel arches that shimmer in the painted daylight. The buildings are tall, each with chimneys billowing smoke and brass window panes that shine far brighter than any brass Kurt has seen in a small town. The people depicted in the painting are small but from the close distance Kurt is looking over the set, they are still detailed, wearing clothes from only a few years ago that still pass for fashionable and smiling happily to each other like they are talking about something incredible.

Kurt knows that he'll need to find another canvas painting, to set the scene for inside a large manor house, but for now he'll roll this one up and use it as the basis to begin rehearsals.

It's when Kurt picks up the oil lamp again, canvas set rolled up tightly and held awkwardly in the crook of his arm, that he spots a box that he's never seen before. And as he holds the oil lamp high above his head to illuminate as much as he can around him, he wonders how he could have missed it in every previous trip to the mess that makes up the backstage of the theater.

It's huge: taller than Kurt is and almost as wide as it is long. It's built of smooth thick wood, the iron nails visible in the lamp-light and from where Kurt's standing he can't see the way in. Carefully, he bends down and leaves the canvas roll on the floor, making sure it's still wrapped up tightly and as far away from his oil lamp as possible. Then he walks around the side of the box – three paces along and four paces down – to see what's on the other side.

There's no plaque or note telling Kurt's what is inside this mystery box but the lid is on the other side of where Kurt had been standing. Only it's more of a door, held in place with more heavy iron nails. Reaching out a hand, Kurt brushes his fingertips over the wood, leaving a trail in the dust that has settled there after years of neglect.

He shouldn't do this. Kurt has things to do: find another canvas set, take both of them out of the backstage storage and hang them somewhere in the wings to start preparations for their play, wait for Rachel and Blaine to arrive so that they can begin their rehearsals, and think of a way to find at least twelve extras willing to take roles for no wage until opening night.

But within minutes, Kurt has left the room and returned with a crowbar. He rests the oil lamp on a nearby pile of broken wooden chairs, jams one end of the crowbar into the tiny space between lid and side, leans all his weight on the metal and pushes.

"Come on," he murmurs, his voice echoing through the room but not exactly encouraging the box to open. He lets the pressure on the crowbar go, pushes again and again until he can hear the creak of wood.

"Come on," he says again, "just a little further."

With an almighty groan of complaint, the lid comes apart from the box, the points of the nails ripping through brittle wood and sticking out dangerously into the small gap Kurt's made with the crowbar. The palms of his hands are tingling from the force of ripping the lid open but Kurt ignores them completely. His curiosity is piqued: especially as he recognizes the faint smell coming from the box.

The tang of metal that he's grown up with his entire life.

Kurt makes sure to grab the oil lamp before walking inside the box. A smile spreads across his lips in joy as his eyes tell him what he already knew.

_Well_, he thinks, _I can take looking for extras off my list_

* * *

"What are they?" Rachel asks over an hour later, peering into the box that Kurt hasn't managed to move out of the backstage storage room. He's lit more lamps to illuminate more of the box and its contents and the metals inside reflect the light to make the box seem brighter than it is.

Blaine is standing at the entrance to the box too, his hands in the pockets of his light gray pants, his black waistcoat accenting his shoulders and arms again. Not that that was the first think Kurt noticed though. Blaine had smiled a greeting and dutifully followed Rachel when Kurt had told them both to come, that he had something amazing to show them.

Something that could change everything.

"They're automatons," Kurt tells Rachel. He's standing inside the box, next to one of the robots that's crumpled in a heap on the floor. He's surrounded by eleven others, all broken in various ways but in the few minutes he's taken a quick glance at the machinery, Kurt knows that each and every automaton inside this box is fixable.

"Like the big city automatons?" Rachel asks. She reaches out to lightly touch the nearest one but withdraws her hand at the last moment.

Kurt nods and says, "They're broken, which is probably why they're back here, but I can fix them and then they'll work exactly like the big city automatons."

Blaine steps closer now and he does touch one of the automatons, resting his hand on the arm of a female robot. He looks her up and down but shrugs as he stands up, turning to Kurt with a questioning look in his eyes.

"I wonder why were they left here and not sold, or repaired?" he asks, which is a question that Kurt had thought about as well. He'd just dismissed the thought and had taken the good fortune that he'd found. Almost like finding the large pot of gold at the end of a leprechaun's rainbow.

"They must have been left here and forgotten," Rachel says after a moment's contemplation, "maybe when the theater closed, or packed away in preparation of having them fixed only never to actually get it done."

"But how can this help us?" she asks after a moment of apparent contemplation, her eyes boring into Kurt's and he can see that she hasn't put the final puzzle piece into its rightful place.

But Kurt worked it out almost as soon as he'd looked inside the box of abandoned, broken clockwork automatons. Why else would twelve broken robots be stored inside a theater?

"Once they're fixed," Kurt explains, barely able to keep the joy from his voice, "they'll be the other parts in our play."

Blaine's eyes widen and he takes a second look around the box in sudden understanding while Rachel still looks lost.

So Kurt elaborates, "They're clockwork actors, Rachel. That's why they're here in the back of the theater. And when they're fixed, they'll be in our play."

And the smile that grows on Rachel's face, the joy in her laugh and almost toppling back into the side of the box and three miraculously standing clockwork actors as she flings herself into his arms is worth it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Clockwork Heart**

**Chapter Three**

* * *

The first clockwork actor that Kurt decides to work on is a female that seems to be in the best condition. She's one of the few that were on their feet when Kurt had found the box and the metals that form her entire body have barely tarnished.

After Kurt finds a key that will wind the clockwork mechanism that makes up her main power source – which Rachel renamed as the clockwork actor's heart – and tests it by winding the mainspring up very slightly, the automaton can lift her arms and move her legs without too much difficulty.

"The gears need oiling properly," Kurt tells Rachel as they look over the automaton one evening long after they finished rehearsing. Blaine has already left but Kurt stayed behind to take a look at one of the automatons and Rachel's curiosity had beaten her need to go home for the evening. "And the hydraulic fluid probably needs replacing but that I'll have to do at Dad's garage."

"So what else is wrong with her that needs repairing?" Rachel asks. She's perched on a table close to the longer table Kurt's been using as a makeshift workbench. Kurt had been leaning against the same table next to Rachel, with his arms folded but he walks towards the automaton to answer Rachel's question.

Taking the now-still automaton's head in his hands, Kurt tips it back to reveal her neck. It's made from two sheets of copper, curved to form a tube that holds the gears to turn the head and the vocal projector that makes the sound. Kurt had noticed the loose gears inside the automaton's neck when he'd taken her out of the box and it had only taken him a few minutes of looking to figure out what was wrong. He had been tinkering with clockwork for years and, when school would be finished but Dad was still at work, he'd give his young inquisitive son a broken clockwork to fix where Dad hadn't been able to figure out what the problem was. Kurt had treated it like it was a game. He hadn't realized that that would come in handy over a decade later.

Kurt taps the part of the automaton's neck that covers the vocal projector, looks over his shoulder at Rachel and says, "This is broken. Her-" he casts his mind around for an appropriate word "-voice box is broken. She can't speak."

"And you can fix that?" Rachel asks, with no hint of unkindness in her voice.

"Of course I can," Kurt says. He turns back to the automaton and moves her head to the side, the thin tin that makes up her hair falling over his hands. It's when Kurt has moved her hair aside that Rachel jumps off the table. The click of her heels against the wooden floor stops him from setting the automaton to lie dormant before diving in to investigate the problem properly.

"What's that?" she asks, coming to stand next to him. She reaches out and brushes her fingertips over something at the back of the automaton's neck, something that had been hidden by her hair until Kurt moved it.

Together, he and Rachel lean in closer to take a look at what she's found. A smile forms unbidden on Kurt's lips when he sees what it is and feels a surge of fondness for the previous owner, who he's never met and who probably has forgotten all about the abandoned automatons in the back of the old theater. It's a name, crudely scratched with an etching pen. The letters are jagged, with each line to make the letter a little more permanent visible in the copper neck.

"Tina," Rachel says. Kurt can hear the fondness in Rachel's voice as well: like they are watching a young child play with a new doll for the first time. "Do you think that's what they used to call her?"

"Probably," Kurt says, his voice quiet.

Rachel rests a hand on his arm and looks at him with excitement in her eyes. "Do you think they all have names?" 

* * *

They do.

Other than Tina, Kurt finds the names Quinn, Kitty, April, Sunshine and Unique engraved on the back of the female automatons' necks. Unique's name had obviously been changed because it's written underneath a hastily crossed out Wade, and her hydraulic system is full of air and will need to be properly purged before Kurt can even check if she'll still work. Quinn and Kitty look almost identical with the main difference being the shorter brass hair on Quinn: Kurt finds the ends of Quinn's shorter hair are welded together, characteristic of a home repair rather than a professional one.

The male automatons are also named, although these are far less professional than even the crudely engraved names on the females. The names of Jake, Ryder, Jesse, Mike, Rory and Artie are easier to find than the females', because there is no hair covering the nape of their necks where all the names are carved. Rory's vocal projector is broken like Tina's, although while Tina couldn't speak Rory makes an unintelligible sound that is characteristic of grinding gears and a well-worn projector. Artie is by far the automaton in the worst condition, with all the wheels in his legs rusted through and useless. Kurt just sinks into a nearby chair with his head in his hands when he takes a look at Artie, and when pressed tells Rachel that repairing him will take far longer than any of the others so far.

"Are they all fixable?" Rachel asks once they've taken all twelve out of their storage box and laid them out on unused tables. Blaine is with them today, still holding onto one of Artie's legs. Kurt is holding the other, stretching it out as far as the gears will allow.

He lets the leg go and smiles when it doesn't immediately fall apart or spring back to its folded position. He nods at Blaine, who lets the other leg go, and then turns to survey their stock properly. It'll be long work and frustrating when it doesn't go as fast as he'd like but Kurt knows he can do this.

"About half the problems are superficial," he says, gesturing to the rust that covers one of Jake's arms. "Half of the rest I'll fix at Dad's garage, and the other half I'll need to order new parts for but they are easy fixes."

Kurt looks up at Rachel first and then over his shoulder at Blaine. Both are watching him with awe in their eyes and barely contained excitement. He feels that excitement too: the steps into the unknown where it could go so wrong but could also go perfectly to plan. This might be the mix of ingredients Kurt and Rachel need to save their theater and he is bursting with excitement to see how the finished project will work.

There're the small stabs of doubt that flare but at the moment at least, Kurt is pointedly ignoring them.

"You two just need to get the actual play sorted," he says with a smile. With his eyes still on Blaine, Kurt sees him frown but he hears Rachel laugh and promise that it will be the best performance of _Much Ado About Nothing_ Lima's seen for years. 

* * *

With a final twist of the wrench, Kurt steps away from the magnifying glass and lifts the goggles over his hair. It's long since fallen out of the style he fixed this morning but he doesn't pay it any attention. He rests the tools in his hands down on the table and with his hands pushes the two curved plates of Tina's neck together.

He takes a moment to look at the automaton now she's ready to be wound and awoken properly. Whoever built this automaton should be very proud of their work. Her body is made of completely of the thin metal plates curved over the gears that allowed her to move but apart from the joints, it is almost impossible to see the gears, wheels and inner clockwork mechanisms. The metal is flawless, forming clothes that contain hollow tubes that pump the hydraulic fluid throughout her body, without making it obvious to the observer that each part has a function. Kurt wants nothing more than to get her working, wake her up out of whatever state of dormancy she's in and see how she works. And now, finally, he can.

"I think she's ready," he calls to Rachel and Blaine. They are in the main hall, the two actors on stage and Kurt finishing the last touches to Tina's voice on a table he moved into the small space between the stage and the seats.

"Really?" Rachel asks with excitement in her voice. She leaps down from the stage, not bothering with the stairs in her haste to see the first fixed clockwork actor. Blaine follows suit but he's a little slower to jump down from the stage.

Rachel stands right next to Kurt, her arm pressed against his, and peers at Tina. The automaton is still dormant: her heart needs to be wound tightly before she wakes and acts. Kurt waits until Blaine has joined him before picking up the key and inserting it into the slot to wind the clockwork mechanism. Even though Rachel is pressed right against him and there's a small gap between his other arm and Blaine, Kurt feels the heat from Blaine's arm through his suit jacket and can't resist glancing at him.

He catches Blaine's gaze as he does and quickly turns back to the automaton, praying that the heat gathering in his cheeks at being caught doesn't turn into a blush.

Kurt concentrates on turning the key, not saying a word until he's tightened the mainspring as far as he needs it to be tightened for today. He'll wind her properly after he knows for certain that she'll work. He takes the key out and waits, praying to something he doesn't believe in that she'll awaken.

Slowly, very slowly, the gears that Kurt can see through the gaps in her metal torso start to turn. Kurt made sure to oil everything that needed oiling and he tested the hydraulic system that runs throughout her body over and over. It takes a few more tense minutes where Kurt isn't even sure he's breathing before he hears a gurgle of fluid. The gears creak as they move for the first time in what's probably years, the protesting getting quieter as they move and turns and drink up the oil, finally making a quiet purr as they whirl against each other with familiar ease.

"Oh my god," Rachel says quietly, grabbing at Kurt's arm and smiling so widely that it must be hurting her cheeks. Kurt's worry for his earlier blush has vanished because if his cheeks are red, he can blame his wide smile. Another quick glance at Blaine shows Kurt that the smile on Blaine's face matches his and Rachel's.

Tina's arms move, properly now she's been fixed, and with a great groan of the metal plates, she sits up. The plates of metal move effortlessly against each other, sliding into place and keeping a minimal gap between them to hide as much of the machinery inside her as possible. She's a beautiful automaton, Kurt notes, almost like a work of art.

"How do we get her talking?" Blaine asks in a breathless voice. He's moved a little closer to Kurt now and his arm now brushes against Kurt's.

Kurt had had an idea about how these clockwork actors might work. "There must be something in her thought-processor – her mind–" Kurt says, changing the mechanical term to a layman's term before Rachel or Blaine can even ask for him to clarify "–should be a switch or a setting that will make her act as the right character. For now, we need to talk to her as characters and have her address us as the character she'll play," he says and then turns his head slightly towards Rachel, not wanting to look away from the perfect automaton in front of him, "What part were you thinking of having her play?"

"Well," Rachel replies, "I was still going to be Beatrice and I think Blaine should still be Claudio. That way we have a human actor and a clockwork actor in both of the main couples." She stops talking and looks up at Kurt, who nods his agreement. It's a good plan. "So," Rachel says, "I think Tina should be Hero."

As one, Rachel and Kurt turn to look at Blaine. He'll need to say something to Tina to get her talking as Hero, and as she'll be playing the other half to Blaine's couple, it seems only fitting that Blaine be the one to start her talking.

"Do you think you'll be able to act in love with a clockwork actor?" Rachel asks.

Blaine nods and turns away from Rachel and Kurt to look at Tina. He bites his lower lip for a moment then takes a breath before saying, "Give me your hand before this holy friar. I am your husband, if you like of me."

Kurt turns to see Tina's response and excitement runs through him as fast as lightning as he watches her turn to Blaine and regard him like she might in the play.

"And when I lived, I was your other wife;" Tina reaches up to her face and takes off a pretend mask and says, "And when you loved, you were my other husband."

"She works!" Rachel whispers but Kurt is quick to quiet her. He wants to see more.

"Another Hero!" Blaine says, his excitement growing and Kurt can't tell if it's just the excitement for the automaton working perfectly or if he's adding the excitement of his character as well.

"Nothing certainer;" Tina says to Blaine, "one Hero died defiled, but I do live, and surely as I live, I am a maid."

Kurt doesn't want to take his eyes off the automaton in front of him. After all the work he's put into fixing Tina up and getting her in a working condition – and all the work he'll have to do to fix the other eleven automatons – he feels a little like a mad scientist must feel after he's created his perfect monster. And apart from the fact that Kurt is fixing something existing, it's like he's watching a creation come to life and he's never been prouder.

Rachel tugs at his arm, breaking the spell Tina held him under. "You need to get fixing the others," she tells him in a tone that leaves no room for argument, "And fast."

For a rare moment in their friendship, Kurt doesn't argue with Rachel at all. 

* * *

The sounds in Kurt's ears are the same as he's heard all his life so despite how loud it is he ignores everything around him. The whirling of buffing machines, the shouts of the mechanics as something inevitably goes wrong with the particular gears they are fixing and customers murmuring about how long it's taking to fix whatever they need fixing.

Kurt is repairing Quinn today, needing tools that he can't pick up and move to the theater to repair a wheel in one of her legs with more broken teeth than he's ever seen on a wheel before. He's spent half the morning removing all the broken teeth and now he's just finished soldering the new metal into the spaces.

It's a long arduous process, fixing all the automatons. Kurt knows he can do it; it's just there always seems to be more problems than expected when he looks at the next automaton to be fixed. Quinn, the female with the hair welded together when it was roughly cut, has plenty of superficial problems but he hadn't realised one of her legs was almost immovable because of the broken wheel at her hip.

Hence why he's in Dad's garage and not merely dusting the rust off with simple sandpaper.

Kurt picks the wheel up and blows the shavings of metal off the top, brushing his fingers along the edge to check the metal he's added is lying straight with the rest of the wheel. When he's satisfied that it is, he picks up the tools that he needs to cut the teeth and gets to work.

It's nearly an hour later that he's disturbed but Kurt doesn't feel like an hour has passed. Sometimes being here, in the same place he's been after school and on weekends throughout his life so far, is peaceful and Kurt can simply drift away from the outside world and outside cares. He can lose himself in his work, whether tinkering with a clockwork animal or fixing a gear for an airship like he and Dad did a few months ago.

"Kurt?" a voice calls, and from the inflection it's not the first time his name has been called. Kurt blinks once, twice and then looks up. Blaine is standing on the other side of the table Kurt is working on, a basket in his hands and an amused smile on his face.

Kurt shakes his head and puts the wheel and file down, hearing metal clunk against the metal table top. "Blaine, hi," he says as he reaches up to take the goggles off. He looks back at Blaine and can now see him without the haze from the dusty glass of his goggles. "Is everything okay?"

Kurt left Blaine and Rachel rehearsing today in the theater with the few automatons that are fixed and in working order. That boils down to Tina, April and Mike at the moment but Rachel had said that it's more important for her and Blaine to learn their lines and then to coordinate than to really rehearse right now.

"Everything's fine," Blaine says as he lifts the basket onto the table, "what's that?"

It takes Kurt a moment to realize what Blaine is talking about. He's looking at the wheel and tools surrounding Kurt, the replacement teeth almost all filed to the right size. Kurt had just been about to start on the final blank piece of metal when he'd been interrupted.

"It's the wheel in Quinn's leg," Kurt says, talking to the wheel for a moment before looking up at Blaine. Rachel and Mercedes are no mechanics and so when Kurt talks about his work they nod and smile but it's obvious they are listening only to be polite. For a moment Kurt wonders if telling Blaine more information about what he's doing will be like that but when he does look up at Blaine he sees what he hopes is genuine interest.

"What was wrong with it?" Blaine asks. He looks around him for a moment and finds a stool to sit on, the feet of the stool scraping loudly against the floor. Blaine rests his elbows on the table and leans in closely, peering at the wheel and then up at Kurt with curiosity obvious in his eyes.

Kurt runs the tip of his index finger around the teeth of the wheel, following the way they bend so he doesn't injure his finger on the metal. "The teeth were broken," he says, "dented, bent, some were almost snapped. Quinn's leg would never move without this wheel being fixed-"

"Was this the wheel at her hip?" Blaine asks, interrupting Kurt just before he was going to explain just that.

"Yeah," Kurt says slowly, a smile creeping onto his lips. He looks down at the wheel again, an idea forming in his mind. He's never had someone listen to him when talking about mechanisms before. "Have you done any mechanic work before?"

Blaine laughs, a blush making his cheeks redden ever so slightly, and he too looks at the table before back up at Kurt. "Sort of," he says, "My Dad and I rebuilt a very simple service automaton when I was fifteen. I don't think I was any good at it, but I remember some of the basics."

"Did it work, after you and your Dad repaired it?" Kurt asks, resting the wheel against the table and leaning closer to Blaine.

"Not really," Blaine says with a laugh. "We had to take it to a mechanic to have it repaired properly after it couldn't walk around the kitchen without hitting a wall."

Kurt laughs as well, the laughter bouncing off the walls and echoing around the small area they are sat in to make it seem far louder. So Blaine isn't a mechanic or a tinker like Kurt, but he's never had someone to talk to who will understand more than 'wheels and gears makes things move'. It's a nice feeling and Kurt can't help but relax. He's been getting to know Blaine a lot more over the past few days, helping him with lines in the play and talking to him about anything that takes their fancy when there is a lull in rehearsals.

"Can I help?" Blaine asks after a moment. He gestures to the work to let Kurt know what he means.

"Oh," Kurt says, "of course." He looks from Blaine to the wheel and back to Blaine again, deciding against giving him the wheel to work on. Quinn's leg will not move unless the wheel works correctly and aligns perfectly with its fellows around it.

"If you let me finish these last new teeth," he says, "you can help me put it back and make sure Quinn's leg works?"

Blaine nods and settles in his chair, both elbows still resting on the table. Kurt too settles in his chair and slides the goggles back over his eyes, although he stops before picking up the file again. Instead he looks at Blaine and nods to the basket left abandoned on the table.

"What's in the basket?" he asks.

"Oh," Blaine says in surprise, as if he had completely forgotten about it, "Lunch. Rachel mentioned that sometimes you don't eat lunch when you're working here, so we brought you some food."

Something in Kurt's heart twinges and he lifts the goggles from his eyes again so that he can see clearly. There's a blush on Blaine's cheeks again but to his credit, he's looking right at Kurt. The gesture is lovely, and Kurt hasn't had a gesture like that in a while. Especially not from someone he met barely a few weeks ago.

"So where's Rachel?" he asks, noting that she was included in Blaine's explanation but is nowhere to be found.

Blaine jerks his head in the direction of the entrance to the garage. "She was talking to some of your Dad's customers about the play," he says, "I saw you sitting back here so I came over without her."

Kurt nods as that's exactly what Rachel would do. It's promotion which is something they sorely need if they are going to sell tickets – let alone sell tickets to the aristocrats – but only Rachel would promote their play when Kurt has barely fixed half of their clockwork actors.

Glancing at the basket, Kurt decides to hurry up and finish the wheel quickly. Blaine and Rachel took the time to gather lunch and bring it to him, the least he can do is finish up his work and not let the food grow too cold. He sits in a comfortable silence with Blaine, broken only when Rachel makes her way to the back of the garage and starts telling Kurt and Blaine just how interested those particular customers were about the play. 

* * *

It takes a few weeks of solid work for Kurt but finally he's fixed enough clockwork actors for Blaine and Rachel to start putting together the show. They had taken the interim time to learn their lines so perfectly that Kurt is surprised Rachel isn't talking Shakespearian English in her sleep. However, with five of the clockwork actors fixed and working and, most importantly, responding when Rachel or Blaine have spoken lines from _Much Ado_, they can finally start putting the scenes together.

"Okay," Rachel says on the first day they can use the actors as they are meant to be used, "I've been thinking about which parts the actors will take. Obviously Hero is being played by Tina," Rachel nods at the automaton, who turns as if she knows she's being spoken about, "and I think Benedick should be played by Jesse."

"It's going to take a while for the parts to come in," Kurt says immediately. Jesse is the only automaton that needs parts Dad doesn't keep in the storeroom behind his garage. They are an older make of gears, long since updated but still being sold for repairs to old clockwork mechanisms.

Rachel shakes her head. "We can wait and just slot Jesse into the scenes after you've fixed him. You can carry on saying Benedick's lines, right?" she asks Kurt, a smile on her face.

Kurt had been helping Blaine and Rachel learn their lines in the usual fashion of filling in for characters they were responding to. While he's not as well-versed with the play as either Rachel or Blaine, because of his help he also knows most of the lines. Particularly Benedick's.

So he nods his consent and listens to Rachel as she lists off the names of the other parts. Some will have to be doubled up, of course: there aren't enough clockwork actors for each part to be played by a different automaton. But as chorus members play multiple parts in the troupes, it's not a rarity that will have the audience too confused.

"Antonio speaks in that scene," Blaine interjects, bringing Kurt out of a reverie that he hadn't realized he'd slipped in to, "If you wanted Mike to play Antonio, he can't also be the Friar."

Rachel purses her lips, looking down the list she's made. "Who-" she says at the same time Blaine says "Unique-"

They look at each other and laugh and Rachel gestures with her hand to let Blaine speak first. "You could give Kitty the part of the Sexton as well as Margaret," he tells Rachel and Kurt, "and give Unique the part of the Friar. That part can become a female Friar Francis, like Leonato is now Leonata."

"Okay, that sounds like a good idea," Rachel says, then turns to Kurt, "Kurt?" He also nods, looking at Blaine and his expressive amber eyes that are shining ever so slightly in the oil lamplight.

"Let's begin then," Rachel says with joy in her voice. It makes Kurt blink and he hates the heat growing on his cheeks. He keeps getting caught looking at Blaine – whether it's a brief glance or catching his gaze like he just did. And that's not the way he needs to think at the moment: not with seven more actors to fix and a theater to save.

With no difficulty whatsoever now the five automatons are active, Rachel leads them onto the stage and into position. Blaine follows after laying his jacket on the folded seat next to the one Kurt takes. He too has removed his smart jacket, and his goggles are resting on his hair, pushing the fringe up like it's a band, but he doesn't move them away.

"We're going to start from the top," Rachel says loudly, her voice projecting to where Kurt's sat and echoing around the empty hall. He lifts one leg, slips it over the other and waits patiently for Rachel to start.  
April, the automaton clearly named for April Rhodes – the same April Rhodes who the theater is named after – has been given the part of Leonato. Or rather in their play, Leonata. She needs to begin the play with the opening line but as Kurt waits in the seat and as Rachel waits on stage, she says nothing.

"Do you think we need to say something to get her to start speaking?" Blaine asks after there has been utter silence in the hall for a few minutes.

"Probably. That's how we've got them to start working so far," Rachel says and then looks at where Kurt is sitting, "Do you know what we should say?"

Kurt frowns at her – as if he's suddenly the expert on acting automatons? – but he does have an idea. "Maybe you should announce the play?"

Rachel steps into the middle of the stage, projects her voice a little louder and as if she's staring at an audience of hundreds of people, says, "Welcome to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. I am most proud to present our newest production, Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing_."

As if nothing had been wrong, the automatons come to life. The gears whirl beneath curved plates of copper and brass and unseeing glass eyes turn in the direction they need to. April walks to Rachel, Tina and Sunshine, the smallest automaton who can actually project better than Rachel can, follow suit.

"I learn in this letter," April says, perfectly loudly enough to fill the hall with her voice, and looking down at a letter she's pretending to hold, "that Don Pedro of Aragon comes this night to Messina."

Sunshine, who has been assigned the part of the Messenger along with the now female Conrade, speaks her answering line without a prompt from Rachel. Like a human would in the play. Kurt almost jumps out of his seat in joy as she so smoothly says, "He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I left him."

"I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return from the wars or no?" Rachel asks, after Leonata and the Messenger have spoken for a while, introducing the characters and setting the scene for the rest of the play. Rachel is perfectly in character but Kurt knows his friend well and he knows she's as excited about this as he is. Blaine, after Kurt glances at him, is smiling widely again too. He is standing at the side of the stage with one hand pressed against his chest, watching with Jake, who's playing Don Pedro, and Ryder, who's playing Don John. Those two automatons are waiting patiently for the line that is their cue to walk onto the stage.

"I know none of that name, lady," Sunshine says.

"What is he that you ask for, neice?" April asks, looking at Rachel now she's spoken.

"My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua," Tina steps closer to Sunshine the messenger and actually rests a hand on Sunshine's brass shoulder while she speaks. A brass shoulder that Kurt spent the whole day yesterday soldering into place after he'd found that it had been attached completely incorrectly by the original mechanic.

"O, he's returned and as pleasant as ever he was," Sunshine says, first nodding at Tine and then turning to interact with Rachel as Beatrice.

She responds by turning up her nose ever so slightly and speaking in a haughty tone of voice. Her lines are flawless and delivered with perfect diction of the flowery Shakespearian language. Kurt rests in his chair and smiles: he has always enjoyed watching Rachel act, like he enjoys hearing Mercedes sing.

"It is so, indeed:" Rachel says, "he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing, well, we are all mortal."

"You must not, sir, mistake my niece," April as Leonata says. Kurt flinches when he hears April address the clearly female messenger as 'sir'. Hopefully he can find something in her processor can be changed to stop the automaton using certain words that would be appropriate in a full production. "There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and-"

April stops. She had been moving slowly, like a human might when speaking to an official but now she is just standing in her final position and not saying anything. Kurt is out of his seat and up the stairs from the hall to the stage before Rachel has had a chance to move to see what might be going on. Blaine follows Kurt and moves the other automatons out of the way so Kurt won't be distracted by ticking clockworks and gurgling hydraulic fluids.

Kurt can't hear any creaking of gears inside April. Her clockwork mechanism – her heart – had needed re-aligning and basic repairs that Kurt can do in his sleep. Suddenly glad he didn't take his goggles off his head, Kurt pulls them over his eyes and leans in closer to the small gap in the side of her torso, the one hiding the clockwork from the audience. Something has jammed one of the gears, stopping the clockwork moving.

"Back to the drawing board?" Rachel asks. Kurt nods as he stands, digging around in the pocket of his pinstriped pants to find the key he uses to put the automatons into dormancy again and a little annoyed that this has happened so soon after April was fixed.

"At least we saw that they really do work," Blaine says, an optimistic voice that Kurt and no doubt Rachel needs.

"Now we just need them to be fixed and stay fixed until long after the show has finished," Kurt says as he sends April back to sleep and gestures for Blaine to take her legs, taking her off stage and back to the makeshift workbench Kurt seems chained to for the foreseeable future. 

* * *

"I'll see you both tomorrow," Rachel says as she hurries out the door to make her way across the town to her fathers' house. Kurt had been invited to dinner with Mr and Mr Berry but he really doesn't feel up to company at the moment.

Ever since they had started full rehearsals with the working automatons, things have gone downhill. Kurt would fix one only to find that one of the ones he'd already repaired needed redoing. Today it was Mike's hydraulic system that needed draining and purging again, discovered after Kurt had spent the entire day buffing every gear that made up Kitty's clockwork mechanism in the busy garage.

Slowly, Kurt sits down at the edge of the stage, his legs dangling over the edge and the sturdy heels of his boots hitting the wood to make a noise that is echoing around the theater. After Tina's perfect introduction to the working clockwork actors and the opening scene that had been rehearsed without too many complications, Kurt's hopes had risen. Now they are back down on earth and it's a place he'd rather not be: not with five more actors to repair and two of them being the ones that needed the most work.

Why Rachel is insisting on having Jesse play Benedick, Kurt didn't know. He'd suggested Jake because that automaton had yet to break after being repaired. And at least she could have longer to practice acting against the clockwork actor who was to play her on-stage love. Kurt had taken a quick look at the problems with the central clockwork mechanism in Jesse and ordered the parts he'd needed but a second look had told him that it would take far longer to repair: Jesse basically needed a new heart.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asks, startling Kurt out of the reverie of despair he'd sunk into. Kurt looks over his shoulder to look at Blaine, seeing him buttoning up his thick coat jacket over the white shirt and black waistcoat. The jacket is a little too heavy for the spring weather but it's so well fitted around Blaine's shoulders that Kurt doesn't mind.

He shrugs in answer to Blaine's question. "I don't really know if this is going to work," he says, confiding his thoughts to the only person he can. Rachel, after she listened to everything Kurt was worried about, would likely panic as much as Kurt is on the verge of. And while he doesn't know Blaine half as well as he knows Rachel, he doesn't think Blaine will panic.

Blaine finishes buttoning his coat and walks the few steps to the edge of the stage, taking a seat next to Kurt. Even sitting down, Kurt is taller than him. "What don't you think will work?" he asks, scooting along the wooden stage until he's closer to Kurt. Their hands are resting a hair's breadth apart from each other's and Kurt feels the heat from Blaine's hand on his own.

"This," Kurt says as an explanation. Blaine's eyebrows crease as he frowns and Kurt continues, "Acting a play with mostly automatons as actors. Having the audience believe it. I can't see an audience turning a blind eye to clockwork actors performing a play when they can just as easily see the same play performed by human ones."

Kurt looks down at the threadbare carpet, the dark leather of his boot catching his eye as he swings his legs like a slow moving pendulum. He's about to hop down from the stage, say good night to Blaine and leave to beg his father for a meal when Blaine speaks again.

"Do you think you could take some time?" he asks, "I want to show you something that I think might make you feel better. And now would be best."

Kurt's curiosity piques and he nods, letting Blaine lead the way down the central aisle of the theater to the main doors. Kurt pauses only to put out the last few remaining oil lamps and to lock the doors once they are outside, wondering what Blaine has in mind that might cheer him up about the play. Night has fallen and the marketplace has come alive with the sounds of people simply enjoying their evening, one of the best times to be out in Lima. Blaine reaches out and takes Kurt's hand, leading him away from the theater and down cobbled streets lined with flickering oil lamps and taverns with their doors flung wide open.

Kurt can't help the thump his heart gives at the feel of Blaine's fingers linked with his own, his cheeks growing red as he follows him down the street. Pointedly not focusing on Blaine's hand or the way his shoulders look in his jacket, Kurt looks around him at the buildings as they walk. He knows the marketplace well but he doesn't recognize the route Blaine is taking him down. They pass taverns with their patrons already drunk, restaurants with lines outside for potential customers and even a group of aristocrats who are looking down their noses at the common folk even as they venture into the town for adventure.

Blaine slows his walk when they break free of the crowd but he doesn't let go of Kurt's hand. Instead he looks over his shoulder and smiles, his face and eyes lighting up in the dimly lit streets. Kurt can't help but smile back, the feeling of despair after today all but forgotten.

They head towards a semi-circle in a large square close to where Kurt used to go to school. The crowd stretches from one side of the square to the other, hiding one corner from view and pressing against a building with a long stone awning illuminated by brass oil lamps. Blaine leads Kurt there, breaking through the crowd to stand by one of the stone pillars with a perfect view of the center of the semi-circle.

Blaine pushes Kurt ahead of him now and then stands right behind him, forced to stand pressed right against Kurt's back because of the surge of onlookers that have followed Blaine's example. But Kurt isn't focused on that. Instead his eyes are fixed on the center of the semi-circle, on the makeshift stage where two women are twirling round each other to the music of a third woman's on a guitar.

The dancers are flawless, spinning and moving with grace that Kurt hasn't ever seen outside of professional dancers. The black haired dancer, wearing a deep red corset, small skirt and knee-high buckled and heeled boots, is the less talented of the two and moves with a more determination than her companion. The other is a blonde with her hair tied in a sleek bun at the crown of her head, a blue corset and small skirt and she looks like she's wearing copper-colored boots that reach her knee as well.

Kurt gasps as the dancers spin in circles on the spot before getting closer and closer to each other. They hold out their hands, grasp them briefly for a moment and then spin away even faster, almost as if they flung each other away. Then they return for another meeting, although this time the dark-haired dancer takes hold of the blonde and leads her in a sweeping waltz around the perimeter of the semi-circle.

The accompanying musician, also a blonde woman in a small skirt and knee-high boots, changes her tune on the guitar to match her dancers: changing tempo as seamlessly as the dancers change the timing of their steps.

"They are amazing," Kurt whispers over his shoulder, feeling Blaine nod his agreement only because his cheek is resting against Kurt's over his shoulder. Kurt doesn't know why Blaine has brought him here but it's a wonderful sight to behold.

Kurt leans back against Blaine, resting one hand against the cold rough stone of the pillar and completely relaxing as he watches the dancers. He can feel Blaine's chest moving as he breathes, hears as well as feels the loud ticking of what must be a pocket-watch in Blaine's top breast pocket and it's soothing. All the pessimism has gone now. Maybe that's why Blaine wanted to show him this: simply to give Kurt something else to focus on to help him calm himself.

"The black-haired girl is Santana Lopez," Blaine murmurs in Kurt's ear after the crowd cheers when the dancers move into the formation to start a tango. "She's a dancer from Kentucky but she's trying to make it to New York."

_Just like Rachel and I tried_ Kurt thinks, looking at Santana with greater respect now he knows she's trying to walk the same path as him.

"The girl playing the guitar is Danielle," Blaine says. "All anyone knows about her is that she's dating Santana and can perform almost any song someone requests."

"She doesn't give her last name?" Kurt asks, turning to look at Blaine and seeing him shake his head. They share a look: there's only one reason someone doesn't give their last name, and that's because their aristocratic family have disowned them due to something they don't agree with. Given that Danielle is making her living playing the guitar for dancers, Kurt knows that that's the likely reason she only goes by her first name.

"And the other dancer is called Brittany," Blaine says a moment later but is cut off from explaining about the third girl by the dancing taking place. Kurt watches and dutifully gasps in awe with the rest of the crowd when Santana lifts Brittany high into the sky, throws her into the air so that Brittany can spin and then catches her like she weighs nothing. Santana gently puts Brittany onto the cobbled ground, dipping her so low her blonde bun is brushing the stone floor and holding the position as Danielle finishes the music with a flourish.

The applause for the dancers and their accompanying musician is loud and fills the square. Kurt's cheeks hurt with how hard he's smiling, his palms stinging at the force of his claps. He hasn't seen such a performance for a long time and he can't help but wonder why Santana, Brittany and Danielle hadn't booked a performance in a huge hall with thousands of audience members already.

He moves away from Blaine, making to step towards the three women and congratulate them personally when Blaine takes Kurt's arm and stops him. He nods at the women again, or rather at Brittany specifically.

"Brittany is an automaton, Kurt," he says, his amber eyes sparkling with delight as Kurt's smile drops from his face and his eyes open in surprise.

"What?" he asks, his voice barely louder than a whisper. She looked so fluid and graceful as she danced; she looked so human. Kurt turns around to watch the three women again, seeing Danielle and Santana embrace and begin to interact with the crowd of people who have walked closer to congratulate the women. Brittany is still standing close to Santana and Danielle, but her hands are by her sides and she's not responding to anyone around her.

Kurt pushes past the people standing in front of Brittany and sweeps his eyes up and down the automaton, looking for the signs of mechanics now he knows what to look for. Kurt can see the pulleys that operate her joints, sees the gears hidden behind a thin layer of metal. He can hear the gurgle of liquid and the hiss of gas as the hydraulic and pneumatic mechanisms work inside her. She doesn't blink, her chest doesn't move because she doesn't breathe and now Kurt is standing close enough he can clearly see that she's not alive.

But when he'd been watching the automaton dance, he would have sworn it was like watching a professional dancer in the big theaters in New York.

And if he thought that, then the other people watching and crowding the two ladies to congratulate them must have thought that too. They are not scornful of the automaton being one of the two leads in the dance; not shock and disgusted that they had cheered a clockwork mechanism as she gracefully impressed the audience. Brittany is a newer and far better model of automaton than Kurt's ones but as he looks around the pleased faces of the crowd, he doesn't think that will make much of a difference.

His automatons, and his and Rachel's play, can be just as good as a play performed entirely by humans. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Clockwork Heart**

**Chapter Four**

* * *

The noise is loud in the tavern but it doesn't stop Kurt from hearing Mercedes, Rachel and Blaine as easily as if they were in a quiet room. Spring has faded and summer has begun with the warm weather, the sunny days and the steady stream of aristocrats moving out of the cities to spend the summer months in the towns. The tavern walls, notice boards on the streets and any stalls that might be of interest to the aristocrats have been papered with parchments notices about the play; something Rachel spent all night perfecting so it would have just the right amount of information without turning the onlooker away.

"I told you," Mercedes says with a laugh, her tall glass of tonic water and gin held loosely in her hand, "the notices have worked. Three more people have asked about it, especially about your automatons."

Kurt beams. All but Jesse are fixed properly now and their sudden stops during rehearsals are few and far between. Artie's legs had taken over three weeks to fix, three weeks where Kurt had spent most day at Dad's garage rather than the theater. He'd taken a day off to help with the play, taking Benedick's part again as Rachel, Blaine and the other clockwork actors worked their way through as much of the script as possible.

It had been better than he'd imaged it.

The clockwork actors fit around Blaine and Rachel as if they hadn't been in storage for an untold number of years. Tina and Blaine don't look like an automaton and a human acting in love: in fact in the scene where Hero and Claudio kiss, it looks almost real. Kurt couldn't help laughing at that scene the first time they'd rehearsed it and Blaine had told him afterwards that kissing the cold metal lips of a machine was one of the strangest things he's done.

Kurt looks down at the list spread out on the table and adds three ticks next to the row labelled 'tickets'. They haven't been selling quickly but they've been selling steadily and for now, that will be have to be enough. Unfortunately, the only seats that are selling are the cheaper seats for the ordinary people. And while they need to ordinary people to come to their play, Kurt and Rachel desperately need to start selling the expensive seats to the aristocrats.

Rachel's hand comes into Kurt's line of view and he looks up at her. "What's next on that list?" she asks with a small smile.

He already knows the answer but he glances down anyway. It's a list that he and Rachel made when they realized that just because they have now got enough actors doesn't mean they are out of trouble. Selling tickets was easy enough to achieve: a few choice advertisements in the Rising Star and a few well-spoken words to the gossips of the town and they had had people buying. It is mainly backstage aspects on the list: stagehands, sets and costumes being the first things Kurt had hurriedly written down.

"Stagehands," Kurt tells Rachel and sighs, "I can ask Dad if he knows anyone who will be willing to help for-"

"I will," Mercedes says. Kurt and Rachel turn to look at her, seeing her beaming smile, "it's the least I can do as I can't help you with the play itself. I spoke to Mr Figgins and he's giving me the night off to see the play so what's the difference if I'm helping you out backstage?"

Kurt reaches across the table and takes Mercedes' hand, squeezing it tightly. He'll hug her later. He had completely understood why Mercedes had turned down the offer to be in the play when he'd asked so hearing that she is willing and eager to help makes his heart swell.

"I can always ask my friend Sam," Blaine says next, after Kurt and Mercedes have let each other go, "He's not doing much by way of work at the moment and I'm sure he wouldn't mind helping out too."

"Thank you," Kurt says with another smile. He doesn't reach out to squeeze Blaine's hand this time, something he's proud that he controlled. He hasn't been very good at controlling how he feels about Blaine recently: not since Blaine took him to see Santana, Danielle and Brittany perform.

"And I'll be there to coordinate," he murmurs, writing down his, Mercedes' and Sam's names next to the row in question. Looking up at Rachel again, he says, "Now as for sets, I think we should use the ones we've got. Repair the ones we have to but use what we have."

"Same for costumes," Rachel says, nodding, "I know the automatons are technically clothed, but I think we should put them in costumes that we have anyway. It'll add another element of realism to the play."

From the other two people at the table, Kurt hears Blaine ask Mercedes, "Why couldn't you be in the play?"

Mercedes points in a circle, taking in the heaving tavern and all the people inside it. "I couldn't stop working here so that I could rehearse with you," she says. Kurt looks away from Rachel, abandoning any hope of continuing that conversation. "I am so close to getting enough money to buy a ticket on an airship away from Lima, and if I told Mr Figgins that I wanted to rehearse in a play, I don't think I'd have had a job to come back to."

Blaine nods at her like he understands completely. "Where's the airship ticket to?" he asks.

"Los Angeles," Mercedes says, the smile on her face wide and joyous. Kurt can feel his own lips curling into a smile as he listens to her talk. She's always so passionate when she's talking about her dream. And he'll miss her like crazy when she finally boards that airship to L.A. but he'll be there to wave her off with as wide a smile as he's smiling now.

Blaine turns to look at Kurt, curiosity shining in his amber eyes. "And you?" he asks.

"What do you mean?" Kurt asks. He sees Rachel out of the corner of his eye frantically shake her head at Blaine but it has no effect.

"Why are you going to be in the play when we open?" Blaine asks. As if on cue, Mercedes begins to shake her head but Blaine either doesn't notice the two women or doesn't heed their warning. "You're rehearsing but aren't having an actual part. And it's your own play! Kurt, you're really good so-"

Finally, it seems, Blaine looks at Rachel and Mercedes and stops talking. Kurt's smile has dropped and his stomach has clenched so tightly it feels in knots. Apart from that conversation a few months ago with Rachel and Mercedes in this very tavern, they know to avoid the subject like the plague. Dad doesn't bring it up anymore. But Blaine is new in Kurt's life – new and important – and he doesn't know the story yet.

But as he looks into Blaine's amber eyes, now filled with regret at asking such a personal and obviously hurtful question, he finds he can't tell him. Blaine had no idea that question would cause such turmoil but apart from resting his hand on Blaine's for reassurance, Kurt can't answer properly.

"Bad memories," Kurt says. Perhaps he should be telling Blaine the full story.

"Mercedes," Rachel says very loudly as soon as Kurt has spoken, turning to look at Mercedes with wide eyes, "have you had any funny stories about customers this week?"

Taking the bait to change the subject, Mercedes launches into a story about two drunken men who had climbed onto the stage the previous evening, loudly caterwauling the words to a song Mercedes had been singing at the time. She'd nudged one of them and they'd both toppled onto the floor, smashing tables and glasses as they went, to the laughter of the patrons in the tavern.

Kurt half-listens to Mercedes' story and half-ponders his situation. He knows he's luckier than most who are emphatically told no. He and Rachel can still work towards their dreams of theater, even if it's far slower and taking the longer route than either of them had dreamed. Rachel had only been told to gain more experience, and to reapply in a year or two. She had never been outright rejected like Kurt had.

Every time Kurt thinks about what he went through with his numerous auditions, he finds the knot that's always in his stomach tightens. The acting world is a cruel place, judgemental and derisive and Kurt was on the receiving end of that far too often to be comfortable stepping out into the firing line again. The so-called pieces of advice are like knives and the patronizing attempts to console him after being insulted are remembered as nothing more than nightmares. Sometimes Kurt wonders why he still wants to be an actor and have his name revered as a Broadway legend.

They leave the tavern soon after that, all four of them heading into the streets to watch performers juggle fire, listen to the buskers perform their music and enjoy the summer warmth. Mercedes and Rachel run ahead when they round the corner into a street that is famous for its jugglers, specifically one man who can juggle six different sized objects that he borrows from his audience.

Kurt hangs back and for once barely notices that Blaine joins him. A hand on his arm drawing his attention tells him that Blaine hasn't run with the girls to watch the performance from a better angle.

Blaine still looks guilty and he leans in closer to keep their conversation private as he says, "I'm sorry about what I said in the tavern back there. I didn't mean to pry, or to upset you. That's the last thing I wanted."

Kurt shrugs but the feeling he had about telling Blaine the truth comes back in full force. He flicks his eyes around them and sees that everyone is engrossed in the performance, so won't be eavesdropping on something that he'd rather not have anyone else hear.

"I can tell you now, if you'd like," he says. The curiosity flashes in Blaine's ever-expressive eyes and Kurt takes that as a yes. He rests a hand on Blaine's bicep and draws him away from the center of the cobbled street, leaning against a wall and indicating Blaine to do the same.

"I applied to acting colleges, and to troupes of actors that pass through Ohio," he says, ignoring any stabs of discomfort at bringing out the memories. He wants Blaine to know why he's happy to help them rehearse but isn't taking a part in the actual performance. "Troupes who were looking for more people and ones who weren't, just in case. But I got turned down by every one of them."

"Every single one?" Blaine asks, his voice breathless.

Kurt nods and says, "The troupes who weren't looking for new people were polite at least, turning me down by saying they weren't looking. The others would laugh me off the stage and tell me to come back when I had gone through puberty, or when I was able to act like a man not a girl in a man's clothes."

"Kurt," he hears Blaine say, so quietly that it's almost drowned out because of the laughter in the street.

"The acting schools were worse," he says, "They tried – and failed – to be professional as they turned me down without any real advice. Telling me that I should practice at blending in more so that I give a good first impression, and that I'm an unbelievable actor who will be good for the comedic relief at best. Telling me, without those exact words, that I'm far too gay to be anything other than that.

"The worst, I think," Kurt says, "is when I overheard two of the people from the acting school in New York saying that there's nothing they could cast me as because I'm too much of a lady." He feels Blaine reach out and take one of his hands. Kurt looks down at their fingers as Blaine interlaces his fingers with Kurt's and a small amount of content runs through his body from where their fingers touch.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Blaine says. His voice is still quiet but he's standing close enough that Kurt hears every word. And somehow the quiet tone of his voice sends another wave of content through his body.

For the first time since beginning his tale, Kurt looks up at Blaine and stares into his wide amber eyes. "I had that for years, four years almost to the day," he says, "and after that, I worked with my Dad in his garage. Tinkering is what I'm good at and apparently acting isn't."

"Do you really believe that?" Blaine asks after Kurt is silent for a while. The performer down the street has apparently started his gimmick of juggling with the audience's belongings because the laughter gets even louder, even though Kurt didn't think it was possible.

"When you hear it enough times," Kurt says immediately, having told himself the same thing over and over again since he left high school and his personal final straw, being turned down by his dream school the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, "you can't help but believe that. And I'm not jeopardizing our play or our theater just to try acting again."

Blaine's eyes lose focus for a few seconds and he briefly presses the heel of his hand to the center of his chest. Kurt wouldn't even have noticed had he not still been looking at Blaine as he spoke. As Blaine blinks and his eyes focus on Kurt again, Kurt asks, "Are you okay?"

Blaine nods, a smile on his lips but Kurt is hardly convinced. He's seen Blaine do that before, press a hand to his chest and breathe deeply, or rest against a solid surface for a few seconds. Another loud laugh from the audience breaks their eye contact as Blaine turns to look. Kurt takes the opportunity to sweep his eyes up and down Blaine's body. He doesn't see anything wrong from the outside but that's not exactly a doctor's diagnosis.

"Don't give up hope, Kurt," Blaine says when he looks back at Kurt, "ever. You're good: you are really good. And I am sorry you had to go through all that. But one day those people are going to recognize just how good you really are and you'll be shining all the brighter than they ever did."

Kurt doesn't feel like what Blaine has said has fixed all the hurt he felt – and still feels – when thinking about his past auditions but hearing that does help, even a small amount. He's grown to love spending time like this with Blaine: not reliving moments that he hates, but the small moments where he and Blaine can talk together. It's something he looks forward to all day. And yes, with the play needing work and Kurt having spent far too much time fixing up the automatons, his growing feelings for Blaine are poorly timed. He has been telling himself that it's just bad timing every time he laughs a little too hard at Blaine's jokes, every time he finds himself gazing at Blaine with a small smile on his lips and every time he looks forward to those moments with just the two of them. For now, at least Kurt smiles at Blaine and squeezes the hand he's still holding.

And his heart skips when Blaine smiles widely in return and squeezes right back. 

* * *

With Mercedes and Blaine's friend Sam helping with the last few problems on the list, Rachel enters the theater less than a week after enlisting their help and says that they have to run a technical rehearsal that very day.

"We need to put all the pieces together," Rachel says to Kurt as they pull the canvas painted background of a sun-filled garden over the back of the stage, "work out what Sam will need to light up with the spotlights, what costumes we'll need for the scene and most importantly the sets."

"Jesse isn't fully fixed yet," Kurt replies, a little breathless after pulling the heavy canvas background, "How can you have a technical rehearsal without all the automatons?"

All the parts that he needs to fix Jesse's heart have arrived and are sitting in the back of the storeroom in Dad's garage, in a box marked with 'For Kurt' written in block capitals. Kurt had been waiting for everything to arrive to fix the last automaton, so he can take as much time as he needs and return with a fully fixed clockwork actor that's ready to take the part of Benedick. With Jesse taking his chosen role a mere day or two away, Kurt doesn't understand why Rachel wants to do this rehearsal right now.

"We needed to do this rehearsal weeks ago," Rachel says, "you know all Benedick's lines so it makes no difference to our rehearsal if it's you reading the part or Jesse. And if you're on stage, you could give more ideas than if you were watching it from the wings."

Blaine, who had been talking quietly with Sam, climbs onto the stage and walks towards Kurt and Rachel, his hands tucked into the pockets of his striped pants. "And you've been performing that part the whole time," he says, smiling at them to show that he was clearly eavesdropping on their conversation, "so it'll probably better to sort out the technicalities if you carry on playing Benedick."

Rachel nods at Blaine and then looks back at Kurt with triumph in her eyes. He sighs: he'll just spend all tomorrow in the garage fixing Jesse instead of today.

The first few scenes pass without a hitch. Mercedes stands just off stage left and Kurt says that he'll be stage right on the opening with the automatons and the sets they need to quickly place in both wings. Sam is in the lighting box high above the seats controlling the two large iron spotlights with their manual shutters easily. Rachel shouts directions to where he should be placing those spotlights and Sam just moves the lamps to wherever she wants them to go.

They have to perform the opening sequence four times before Rachel is happy with it. Kurt watches from the wings with a smile on his lips, standing with Blaine before his and Blaine's entrance. By the fifth repetition of the opening scene, it's even better than he's seen before.

"They look fantastic," Blaine whispers to him, resting a hand on Kurt's elbow. Kurt turns to look at Blaine over his shoulder and nods.

"It's definitely the best they've performed since we started rehearsals," he says.

Kurt looks back to the stage just as Rachel sweeps downstage with a smile on her face and says, "No, not 'till a hot January."

"Don Pedro is approached!" Sunshine as the Messenger says, pointing towards the wings where Blaine, Kurt, Jake, Ryder and the other automatons are standing. Where Rachel before would shake her head and begin the scene over, now she nods to let Kurt know they should carry on.

Jake leads the way onto the stage as Don Pedro, Kurt and Blaine at both his elbows and Ryder as Don John a little way behind them. It's a flawless entrance as if they had practiced it over and over for months rather than for a few weeks at most.

They rehearse the remainder of the opening scene five times as well, each time trudging off stage to hide in the wings until Sunshine says her line that doubles as their cue.

"This will take all day and night if we have to rehearse each small part of the scenes over and over," Blaine murmurs to Kurt when they walk back offstage for the fifth time. Kurt can't help but nod: he knows Rachel and loves her for her enthusiasm but he had thought the scene, highlighted by the Benedick and Beatrice exchange, was working well.

"Okay," Kurt says after Rachel opens her mouth to suggest repeating the scene yet again, "this is fine. We've worked out the lighting and what sets need to go where and we have to move on. We've barely touched the first act."

Although she looks like she wants to argue, Rachel nods. She waits with the others behind April as Leonata until Jake rests a hand on April's metal shoulder and says, "Your hand, Leonata, we will go together."

Jakes leads the way off the stage, taking everyone with him except for Kurt and Blaine. Every time he hears one of the automatons say 'Leonata' instead of the correct name, Kurt can't help a thrill of pride run through him. There hadn't been a setting to tell each automaton that one of the characters was being played by a woman: he'd had to alter each and every automaton's thought processor to allow for that change. It wasn't a permanent alteration but it had taken a long time for Kurt to work out which clockwork disc held all the Shakespeare plays and how to alter just the one name to Leonata. But every time a character interacted with Leonata, Kurt couldn't help the grin that spread across his lips.

Once the other actors had left the stage, Blaine walks a little closer to Kurt, one hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder. "Benedick," Blaine says, loud enough to be heard throughout the theater, "didst thou note the daughter of Signora Leonata?"

It had taken time for Rachel and Blaine to relearn the lines using the changed name as well.

"I noted her not," Kurt replies, looking to the side of the stage where the rest of the actors left, seeing Rachel watching closely for things to change or perfect and then looks back at Blaine, "but I looked on her."

"Is she not a modest young lady?" Blaine says. He delivers the line flawlessly but something in his eyes loses focus and it's almost like he's staring at something just behind Kurt. Even knowing that Rachel will pounce on him like a cat with a ball of yarn, Kurt looks over his shoulder to see if Blaine is looking at something. There's nothing behind Kurt that he could be staring at.

"Do you question me, as an honest man should, for my simple true judgement?" Kurt asks, turning back to see Blaine's eyes. As he delivers his lines, Kurt watches them as they lose focus and gain focus again and again. He reaches out and grasps Blaine's arm, not as part of the scene but because he has no idea what could be wrong. "Or would you rather have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?"

"No. I pray thee speak in sober judgement." Blaine says, as forcefully as Claudio would say in the play. Although this time, his words are slurred. Standing as close as he is, Kurt can hear the breathlessness in his voice and after he's finished speaking, his breathing gets shorter and faster. The grip of Blaine's hand on Kurt's shoulder has tightened to a point that it's beginning to hurt.

"Are you okay?" he asks instead on his next line. Blaine blinks once, twice and then nods. It's not convincing – in fact it makes Kurt even more worried – but when Blaine nods again, he says his next line instead of dragging Blaine off stage and into a chair so he could catch his breath.

"Why, i'faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I-"

Kurt doesn't finish his line. Blaine's hold on Kurt' shoulder loosens, his eyes lose focus completely and he falls. Kurt is forced to let go of him as Blaine faints, dropping like a stone to ground, hitting the stage with bang that echoes around the deathly silent theater. 

* * *

Kurt is on his knees at Blaine's side before he even realizes he's moved. Two pairs of running feet from the wings tell him that Rachel and Mercedes have joined him, and the pounding of heavy boots as Sam runs down the stairs from the lighting box and across the hall to reach them reaches Kurt's ears as if from across town.

"Blaine?" Kurt asks. He has never had someone faint around him before and the shock of seeing Blaine keel over has made his heart race. He's scared: he has no idea what could have caused Blaine to faint. He hopes it is nothing more than not eating enough at breakfast time, but a small voice in Kurt's mind is telling him that this is a far more serious problem.

Kurt cups one of Blaine's cheeks in his hand, rubbing his thumb over Blaine's cheekbone. He's lost all color, his skin sickly white under its natural tan. His breathing has returned to normal but with his eyes closed, Kurt has no idea if Blaine will be able to focus on anything.

Blaine doesn't respond to his name so Kurt says it again, a little louder and more forceful. He wants Blaine to open those amber eyes and tell him that nothing is wrong.

Running feet against wood makes Kurt look up from Blaine in time to be pushed away by Sam, who has dropped to his knees by Blaine's head. He's breathing hard – from running or from worry, Kurt can't tell – and he moves to rest Blaine's head on his knees like a makeshift pillow.

"Is he alright?" Rachel asks, her voice tiny and shaking. Kurt looks over his shoulder and sees that she's staring at Blaine with such concern in her eyes and Mercedes, who only met Blaine recently but had told Kurt she can see why he likes him, is pale with worry.

"I don't think so," Sam says. Blaine has been wearing a bow tie today and Sam tugs at it uselessly. Kurt bats his hands out of the way and expertly unties the bow, tucking the fabric into the pocket of his pants. Kurt opens the top two buttons of Blaine's shirt, although he's not sure this is going to help. Blaine still hasn't woken up.

Sam doesn't say anything for a long time, or for what seems like a long time. With every passing second, to Kurt it feels like a hundred seconds. He watches Blaine as he breathes deeply, the color in his cheeks returning ever so slowly. Finally, Blaine's eyes blink open. Kurt's heart races and he can feel the pounding in his ears. Without even thinking, Kurt crowds in closer, looking at Blaine from over Sam's shoulder.

His grin fades when Blaine blinks blearily up at him and then immediately closes his eyes. Sam, still cupping Blaine's head to hold it on his knees, looks up at Rachel, Mercedes and Kurt. "We need to get him home," he says quietly, as if he's afraid of waking Blaine up, "can someone call a cab?"

Mercedes is up and running towards the front doors of the theater, skirts flying around her legs, before anyone else has even thought to reply.

"Shouldn't we take him to a doctor?" Kurt asks. He reaches out and takes one of Blaine's limp hands in his own, if only to feel Blaine's warm skin under his fingers and know that he's still here.

To Kurt's surprise, and from Rachel's gasp her surprise as well, Sam shakes him head. "No," he says, "we need to take him home. Doctors won't do anything to help. There's nothing new they can do."

Nothing new? Kurt clutches Blaine's hand a little tighter. Something was very wrong, if he had been to the doctors so often there was nothing new they could try.

Mercedes runs back inside the hall, pointing over her shoulder to the doubles doors that she's left open. "The cab's here," she says, her voice breathless from running down the theater hall and no doubt outside to find the nearest cab.

Sam slides one arm underneath Blaine's shoulders and shuffles around on his knees until he can slide his other arm under Blaine's knees. He looks at Kurt, who hasn't moved away from Blaine's side. "Can you help me pick him up?" he asks.

Kurt stands and walks to the other side of Blaine's body, sliding one arm under Blaine's knees like Sam and pressing his other hand against the middle of his back. With a nod at Sam, they slowly get to their feet, supporting Blaine with their arms as the first rise to one knee, then the other and finally stand. Rachel rushes closer to cup Blaine's head in her hand to stop it from lolling and she only lets go when Sam has Blaine in a comfortable enough position to rest his head against his chest.

"I'm coming back with you," Kurt tells Sam as they make their way to the street, moving slowly down the central aisle to keep Blaine as comfortable as he possibly can be. He hasn't opened his eyes since the first time, and that's making Kurt's heart pound with worry again.

Sam looks over his shoulder at Kurt, an expression in his eyes that Kurt can't recognize. "No," he starts to say but Kurt fixes him with a glare and he stops talking. There is no way Kurt isn't coming back with Sam to Blaine's apartment. There's no way Kurt isn't staying with Blaine until he is sure that he will be okay. And if Sam will refuse to allow him to ride in the same cab, then Kurt will make his way to Blaine's apartment on foot.

The cab is small, a carriage made for two people drawn by a single horse and the driver standing behind the cab, but it is large enough to suit their needs. The driver hops down from the platform and opens the door, peering curiously as Sam awkwardly climbs into the cab with Blaine still in his arms. The cab rocks and sways and finally settles into place as Kurt jumps in after Sam, nodding to the cab driver to close the door.

Rachel and Mercedes appear at the window, Rachel reaching out to grab the sleeve of Kurt's jacket. "You promise you'll let us know how he is?" she says, her voice small and her eyes concerned.

"Of course," Kurt promises, hoping he'll be able to deliver the good news soon. He sticks his head out of the window to glance at the driver and give him Blaine's address. With a nod of his head, the driver takes up the leather reins, flicks them once and they speed away from the theater. 

* * *

When they arrive at Blaine's apartment, Kurt almost throws the money for the fare at the driver and runs ahead of Sam to open the door to the building and then to Blaine's apartment. It's cold in the main room and remembering what Blaine had told him weeks ago, Kurt heads for the fireplace to light the kindling and start a fire. He's just placed the grate in front of the small flames when Sam walks into the apartment, Blaine cradled in his arms.

"Can you open the door to his bedroom?" Sam asks, nodding at the door in question. Kurt hurries over to twist the brass handle and open the door to Blaine's bedroom. It's a small room, with enough space to fit a closet, a clothes trunk and a bed pressed against the opposite wall but still managing to take up most of the space in the room. There's no fireplace in here so Kurt leaves the door open, hoping that the fire will warm up the apartment soon.

Sam gently lays Blaine down on his bed, taking the time to rest Blaine's head on his pillow before moving to take off his boots. Kurt folds his arms and watches for a moment. Although Blaine hadn't mentioned Sam before Kurt brought up the need for extra help backstage with the play, it's clear that they are good friends. Blaine had introduced Sam with a wide smile on his face and even the fact that Sam had agreed to help after being volunteered showed their friendship.

"Sam," Kurt says, his voice quiet, "what's wrong? If you need a doctor I can recommend one. My Dad's been ill. He's better now and the doctor who treated him-"

But Sam shakes his head. "A doctor won't help. Blaine knows what's wrong, there's just nothing that can be done."

Kurt moves closer to the bed, standing by Blaine's head. "What does that mean? How can there be nothing a doctor can do?" he asks. He keeps his voice quiet but there's a hint of anger in his tone. He's been worried and scared for a while now and his friendship and feelings for Blaine have flourished ever since he'd knocked on the door of this very apartment to tell Blaine about the plans for the play. He doesn't want to hear vague explanations and throwaway comments. He wants to know the truth because then he can help.

Sam looks uneasily at Kurt. He actually wrings his hands. "I- I don't know if I can tell you why," he says, "It's not really up to me. It's Blaine's and I-I don't think he'll like it if I tell you."

A quiet hoarse voice draws both Sam's and Kurt's attention. "It's okay," Blaine says. His eyes are open, just barely, and he's looking up at Kurt. Kurt has never been happier to see another person's eyes before – except Dad's eyes after he woke up from his coma when Kurt was younger.

Blaine reaches up to the collar of his shirt with the two top buttons already open. His hands are shaking but somehow he manages to open one button. As he reaches for the fourth button, Sam takes over, opening two more and then turning to the buttons of Blaine's waistcoat. Blaine looks up at Kurt again and holds his gaze.

The elation at hearing Blaine speak combined with the tense worry he's been feeling ever since Blaine fainted twists and turns in Kurt's stomach. He wants to know so that he can help, but he's heard terrible news regarding health from doctors about his Mom and his Dad before and it's not something Kurt is eager to repeat.  
With Blaine's waistcoat unbuttoned and his shirt open enough, Sam tugs at the right side of Blaine's shirt. It falls away and when Kurt looks he gasps despite himself.

An intricate clockwork mechanism covers the right side of Blaine's chest, stretching from his sternum to his armpit, from collarbone to the bottom of his pectoral muscle. It is a massive mechanism, with too many wheels for Kurt to count, all ticking in an irregular beat and out of sync with each other. The mechanism is anchored to Blaine by thick copper wire that is dug into Blaine's flesh and it's clear from the red around each wire that they go underneath his skin, possibly inside his chest.

Long thin fingers enter Kurt's line of sight, heading to touch the clockwork and explore. It's only when he feels metal does he realize that those were his own fingers prying into Blaine's business and he jerks his hand away like the metal had been scalding.

"What does it do?" he asks, despite feeling like he shouldn't ask too many questions. He had wanted to know so he could try and help. He's not sure he wanted to know anymore.

"It's a pacemaker," Blaine says then shakes his head weakly, "actually the clockwork powers the pacemaker. The actual pacemaker is-"

"Electromagnetic," Kurt interrupts, and Blaine nods. Kurt's seen this before: the doctor told Dad that it was a possibility if his heart didn't improve. But the pacemaker he showed Dad – and Kurt who had been there for that appointment – was far smaller than Blaine's. The clockwork had been no bigger than a small pocket watch: certainly not spanning the entire right side of grown man's chest.

Kurt can't seem to take his eyes off the clockwork, the ticking wheels and the balance wheel swinging back and forth. There's something strange that he keeps seeing out of the corner of his eyes but as soon as he tries to look harder, he misses it.

"This looks old," he says after a while, the crackling of the fire the only noise in the apartment. Sam has taken a seat at the end of the bed and Blaine has been drifting in and out of wakefulness, but he looks up at Kurt when he speaks.

"I got it when I was ten," Blaine says, his voice still hoarse. Kurt's eyes snap up to meet Blaine's. He's had this pacemaker for over a decade? No wonder it is far larger than any Kurt and Dad had been shown only a few years ago.

"When you were ten?" he asks, so quietly it's almost as if he's not speaking the words at all.

Blaine nods. "There's something wrong with my heart," he says, looking away from Kurt as if he's embarrassed, "it doesn't beat right. Or so the doctor says. When this was new-" he gestures to the clockwork contraption "-it fixed the problem but it's not new anymore and it's not working properly. So neither is my heart."

Kurt's mind fills with memories of Blaine since they met weeks ago. Kurt had seen Blaine stop and rest for a few moments, pressing a hand to his chest and breathing deeply as if he was trying to still a fast beating heart. He remembers that night when he'd had told Blaine about his past experiences with auditions and had seen Blaine's eyes glaze over, as if he was moments from fainting like he was today. His heart must not have been beating properly then either. A swell of emotion – worry or panic, Kurt can't tell – surges through him.

The thing that's wrong flashes in Kurt's peripheral vision again. He looks back at the clockwork and suddenly it's like a puzzle has unravelled in front of his eyes. Perhaps it's simply knowing just how old this clockwork is that helped Kurt figure out what was wrong.

The balance wheel isn't swinging correctly. The harmonic oscillator, arguable the most important part of any timekeeping device, isn't keeping to the correct time. Kurt leans in closer, his eyes fixed on the balance wheel swinging back and forth, back and forth. Every few swings – not often enough to be regular and immediately obvious – it sticks and takes longer to swing in the opposite direction.

Kurt rests a hand on Blaine's shoulder, his thumb unconsciously rubbing against Blaine's skin. Once again he looks at Blaine, who has been watching him inspect the clockwork. "I know what's wrong with it," Kurt says, his voice quiet but perfectly audible over the fire.

Blaine's eyes widen and Sam jumps up, walking closer so he can peer over Kurt's shoulder at the incorrectly ticking clockwork. "What?" he asks before Blaine can even open his mouth.

"My Dad had me fixing clockworks for years," Kurt says, in lieu of an explanation, "I later found out that he got me to fix them because I could work out what was wrong faster than he could." Kurt points at the balance wheel. Sam leans closer to the clockwork and Blaine strains to look at what Kurt's pointing at, contorting his neck and almost tucking his chin into his collarbone. "The balance assembly is gone so there's almost no harmonic oscillation. That's why your pacemaker's failing: I'm surprised this is still ticking at all."

There's something else that's wrong, something else that is just at the edge of his vision, something that's on the tip of his tongue but he just can't figure it out yet.

"The harmonica what?" Sam asks, and Blaine smiles. Kurt looks up from the clockwork just in time to see that smile and a weight in his stomach lifts.

"Harmonic oscillation," Blaine repeats, "it's what makes a clock tick."

"Actually, it's what keeps time," Kurt says, "the balance assembly is what makes the clock tick."

Sam's mouth drops open is a silent 'oh' and he nods like he understands perfectly now. He points at the clockwork, at the mainspring, and asks, "So it's broken?"

Kurt cups the back of Sam's elbow and moves his arm until his finger is point at the balance wheel. It's still ticking and now Kurt's seen what's wrong it's almost obvious how it's out of sync. The hairspring has irregular bends, at least ten that Kurt can see, and the balance staff is damaged beyond repair.

"It just needs repairing," Kurt tells Sam, still rubbing Blaine's shoulder in a way that Kurt is hoping is comforting. The wheels need repairing too: some need replacing because of the number of damaged teeth there will be.

And then the second piece of the puzzle falls into place. Kurt can hear Sam ask Blaine about repairs, and somewhere in the background Kurt hears Blaine say that he could never afford the repairs and that Sam had known that. But Kurt is once again staring at the wheels of the clockwork, the mistimed balance wheel and the fatigued mainspring.

He's seen those parts before, and very recently. Blaine had said his pacemaker was old: at least fourteen years old. They've improved the pacemakers and all medical equipments since Blaine had his pacemaker but they haven't stopped making the parts needed for repairs.

And Kurt has already bought everything he needs to repair Blaine's clockwork pacemaker. Because those parts were bought to repair Jesse.

* * *

On his way to Blaine's apartment the next day, Kurt makes two stops. The first is to the garage to pick up the box containing all the parts he'd ordered for Jesse. Only two of Dad's mechanics are in the shop that early and they greet Kurt with smiles that are far too cheerful for the morning.

Kurt's second stop is to Rachel's apartment. He knocks on the door and waits, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. She finally opens the door, peering through the crack with bleary eyes and wrapped in a robe.

"Kurt!" she says brightly, throwing open the door and grabbing his arm to tug him inside. He hadn't been able to visit her last night, leaving Blaine's apartment long after midnight and after Blaine had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Sam had promised to keep an eye out for him and Kurt had left to wander the streets between Blaine's apartment and his own, his mind whirling like a mainspring with no control.

Within minutes, Kurt is sitting on Rachel's bed cupping a mug of herbal tea in his hands, the box of parts on a table in the living room and his bag of tools left unceremoniously by her front door. Rachel is behind a privacy screen, slipping off her night gown and awkwardly tying her corsets after refusing Kurt's offer of help.

"So how's Blaine?" she asks, poking her head around the privacy screen as she speaks.

Kurt sighs, taking a long sip from the mug in his hands before replying. He briefly explains about Blaine's heart problem and pacemaker – Kurt had mentioned to Blaine that Rachel and Mercedes sent their best wishes for him before Blaine had fallen asleep, and he'd told Kurt that the two girls could know the details if they asked – and exactly how the pacemaker was broken. Rachel is no mechanic but she's spent enough time with Kurt in the garage to know a little of what he's talking about.

Rachel walks out from behind the screen, half dressed in a knee length skirt, stockings and her corset with no bodice but she's not embarrassed. Her face is filled with concern and she takes hold of Kurt's hands as she sits next to him, the mattress bouncing ever so slightly from the addition of her weight.

"So why are you here?" she asks after Kurt's finished telling her all she needs to know.

Sighing again, Kurt looks from the direction of the box in the living room to Rachel. "I can fix it," he says, "Blaine's clockwork. The parts in his pacemaker are the same make as in Jesse, so I've got everything I'll need."

Rachel gasps, excitement filling her eyes. Then she looks Kurt up and down and asks again, "So why are you _here_?"

"I'm not a doctor, Rachel," Kurt says after a moment's pause. It's the mantra that has been running through his head all night and it's what almost stopped him heading straight to garage when the sun rose to pick up the box of new parts. "And I'm certainly not a doctor's mechanic. I'm a tinker. So what if I make it worse?"

"Kurt, of course you won't make it worse," Rachel says immediately, "and you know that."

Kurt opens his mouth to argue, to say that he has no reason to think that he wouldn't make the situation far worse for Blaine, but Rachel shakes her head and talks over anything he would have said.

"And you're not just a tinker either. You were a tinker when you were playing with clockwork while we were still in high school," she says, looking him right in the eyes and not letting him look away, "but you aren't now. You're good Kurt: you doubt yourself far too often. In this and in your acting."

Kurt blinks and suddenly he can look away from Rachel. He fixed on a knot in the wooden floor of her bedroom. "It's hard when you've been told otherwise for so long," he says to the floor, "and you know how many times I've heard that."

Rachel lets go of one of Kurt's hands, cups his chin with her free one and moves his face back up so that they are looking at each other again. With a small smile on her lips, she says, "And I can't wait for the day that they are proved so wrong. When they will all come and watch you perform like the master that you are."

Kurt's not sure what he had wanted to hear when he stopped by Rachel's apartment. He had needed his best friend's advice, that's for sure, and somehow she's settled all his worries. Rachel always seemed to know what to say to help Kurt with any tumultuous feelings and she didn't disappoint.

"And besides," Rachel says, her smile growing, "are you really going to leave Blaine without any help?"

Kurt laughs and shakes his head. That's why he'd brought the box of new clockwork parts after all. It's just clear that he needed Rachel to tell him he was doing the right thing.

Rachel lets go of him and shifts on the bed, turning so her back and half laced corset is facing him. Kurt knows what she's going to say before she even looks over her shoulder at him. "Would you mind?" she asks, gesturing to the laces, "I want to come with you to Blaine's so I do need helping lacing these quickly."

Kurt reaches out, feeling the rough lacing cords and then tugs sharply at them. Rachel gasps at the sudden restriction, awkwardly reaches over her shoulder and swipes at the only part of his arm that she can reach. Laughing again, Kurt tugs at the corset to loosen the tightening he'd just done and then starts to lace the corset properly. 

* * *

Blaine is sitting up at least, when Kurt and Rachel arrive. Sam opened the door with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbow and a pot filled with freshly brewed tea in one hand. He takes them straight to Blaine, who gives them a smile in greeting.

Rachel stays with Sam by the door and watches as Kurt approaches the bed, takes a seat and covers Blaine's hands with one of his own. The other is still clutching tightly to the box of spare parts. Blaine looks much better this morning, propped up against the hard wooden headboard with a pillow between his back and the cold wood. His color has returned to his face and his eyes are focused on Kurt – fixed on Kurt. His clockwork pacemaker is covered once again with a shirt, although he hasn't buttoned to the top and Kurt can see the brass and bronze wheels peeking out through the open collar.

"How are you feeling?" he asks. The apartment is warm, heated by the fire in the living room that Kurt thinks is the same one he started last night.

"Better," Blaine says with a nod, "less likely that I'll faint again."

"Good," Kurt says and for a moment looks right into Blaine's amber eyes. He does look far more focused than he did yesterday and while Kurt isn't a doctor, he knows that is an improvement.

He looks away from Blaine to the box in his hand. He has to swallow a few times to wet his suddenly dry mouth and his fingers tap out a non-descript rhythm against the side of the wood. A squeeze on his hand finally makes Kurt look up at Blaine again. He is looking from Kurt to the box and back again with confusion in his eyes.

"Is everything okay?" he asks finally when Kurt still doesn't explain.

Licking his lips before talking, Kurt says, "I can fix it."

For a long, tense moment there are no sounds in the apartment except for the crackling of the fire and the noises from the street outside. When Kurt and Rachel had walked from her apartment to Blaine's, the streets had been mostly empty and the sun had barely crested the tallest building. Now there's more people awake and out, and the sound of someone laughing is as loud in the silent apartment as it must have been outside.

"Fix what?" Blaine asks in a voice that Kurt can hear is full of suppressed hope. "You can fix my pacemaker?"

"Yes," Kurt says and once again there's silence in the apartment. Only this time, Kurt surges on. "The wheels in your pacemaker are old and they need replacing. But they are as old as the parts I needed to fix Jesse."

Blaine's eyes are shining but Kurt can't pick out one emotion. He can only guess how Blaine must be feeling: he couldn't afford to have the clockwork controls of his pacemaker fixed and now he's being presented with a way that is not exact legal but free. If Kurt fixes Blaine's pacemaker, he can't go back to a legitimate doctor to get it repaired a second time: it will always have to be Kurt. But it's an option that Kurt doesn't think Blaine even thought of before.

"I'm not a doctor," Kurt says, repeating what he had said to Rachel a little while ago. "And I'm just a tinker. But I can do this for you, if you want."

Blaine's hands, still covered with Kurt's, move until he's flipped one of them over. Blaine links his hand with Kurt's, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Kurt can feel the trembles where they are holding hands and waits. He can't tell if those trembles are from fear or excitement. There's nothing in Blaine's eyes that gives Kurt a clear indication as to his feelings.

Sam and Rachel are deathly silent behind him, not even breathing loudly. Kurt simply sits on the bed and waits for Blaine's reply, waits for Blaine to process the chance of having a fixed pacemaker. He might say no, might want to save up enough money to have the repair work performed by a professional mechanic and not by a failed actor who was raised by a mechanic.

"Okay," Blaine says at last. Rachel gasps behind Kurt and Kurt hears her mumble something, but he can't pick out the words. He's still staring at Blaine, taking in his eyes that are now clearly filled with fear laced determination, his long lashes that actually touch his cheek when he blinks and his lips, the bottom lip Blaine has sucked into his mouth to chew on with nerves.

Kurt nods once and then looks over his shoulder to Sam. Sam is standing with one arm around Rachel's shoulders and the other held tightly over his mouth. He swallows hard when Kurt looks at him but starts to move forward.

"Help me with him," Kurt orders. He finally lets go of Blaine's hands, standing and moving so he can take one of Blaine's arms. Together, Kurt and Sam help Blaine out of the bed and into Rachel's waiting embrace. No matter how focused Blaine looks and how improved he is from yesterday, he's still breathless after getting out of bed and leans heavily on Rachel when she takes Blaine out into the small living room.

Kurt follows, giving the box of parts to Sam and lifting his bag of tools over his head. Opening the flap, Kurt pulls out the old gray cloth he uses to over the surface of wherever he's working and covers Blaine's dining room table. He straightens the cloth at the corners and smoothes away creases in the fabric before beckoning to Blaine.

Should he be doing this in the garage? Kurt has everything he needs in the box of new parts but if there are some pinions and bearings that can simply be repaired rather than replaced, should he keep the new ones back?

Looking at Blaine leaning on Rachel as they slowly make their way to the table, Blaine losing a small amount of the color in his cheeks as he walks, Kurt decides against that idea. If there are pinions that can be repaired, Kurt will keep them for Jesse and other projects. Blaine's pacemaker needs to be fixed perfectly and if that includes replacing every part of the clockwork mechanism then Kurt will spend all day doing that.

Carefully, as if he's holding precious glass works of art, Sam places the box of parts at the head of the table. He looks at Kurt as if to make sure that's where Kurt wanted it and smiles his own wide smile when Kurt nods his thanks. Then he walks round the table and into the kitchen, returning with two chairs held under his arm.

"Where do you need to sit?" he asks after dropping one chair on the opposite side of the table to where he left the parts.

Kurt waits until Blaine has sat on the table and then laid down before pointing to a spot. "Here," he says and Sam places the chair so that when Kurt sits down, he'll be eye-level with Blaine's pacemaker.

Blaine reaches for the ties to his shirt but Rachel darts out a hand to stop him. "Before you start, Kurt," she says, "is it okay for the clockwork to stop for a bit?"

Kurt's face blanches and he quickly looks to Blaine to see his answer. Of course he'll have to stop the clockwork to repair it: and stopping the clockwork will mean stopping the source of power for the electromagnetic pacemaker. Something that could potentially stop Blaine's heart. Kurt hadn't even thought of that and he has never been more grateful that Rachel insisted on coming today.

_That is why I'm not a doctor's mechanic._ Kurt thinks while he waits for Blaine to reply.

To his intense relief, Blaine nods. "It should be fine," he says, first looking at Rachel and then at Kurt, "I think my heart beats normally for most of the time and the pacemaker just keeps it in check when it doesn't beat like it should."

"When it works," Sam adds.

"When it works," Blaine repeats, looking up at Sam, who is standing by his chair next to Blaine's left hand.

"Okay," Kurt says. He nods and rummages around in his open bag. He takes out his goggles and pulls them over his head, settling them on the crown of his head and tugging at caught strands of hair until they lie comfortably. Then he lays out all the tools he'll need for a job of this importance. Kurt knows he's taking out far more than he'll use, but he'd rather had it out and ready than be forced to search through the bag when he needs it right away. The last thing he sets up is the magnifying glass on an arm. This Kurt places with the base under Blaine's shoulder and the glass hovering over his chest.

Blaine, seeing Kurt putting his bag on the floor by his feet and pulling his goggles over his eyes, reaches up again and unties his shirt. Unlike yesterday where he just opened his shirt to show Kurt the clockwork, Blaine pulls his arms out of the sleeves and lets the shirt fall away so that he's lying on the fabric but shirtless.

"Oh my god," Rachel whispers. She walks closer and stares at Blaine's chest, her hand over her mouth.

Seeing the blush rising on Blaine's cheeks, Kurt says, "Rachel can you come here, I'll probably need your help through this."

The look of gratitude Blaine shoots him makes a small knot of nerves in Kurt's own stomach loosen. He knows for certain that what he's doing is the right thing. No matter how he feels about Blaine, Kurt can't let a friend go without help. What Kurt isn't sure about is if fixing Blaine's pacemaker himself is the right thing. He's not trained in this work and he could be doing far more harm than good.

"Rachel," Kurt says. Thankfully, his voice doesn't shake with the rising tide of nerves in his throat. "Can you find the winding key? I need to let down the mainspring."

Rachel rushes off, pausing in the doorway when Blaine speaks. "It's in a small box on the table by my bed," he says and Rachel disappears into Blaine's bedroom.

Sam has taken a seat and is holding Blaine's left hand in both of his own. Kurt's fingers are hovering over the clockwork, his eyes fixed on the three wheels he can see right away that will need to be replaced. He looks up at Blaine, however, when he takes one of Kurt's hands in his.

"I trust you Kurt," he says in a low voice but it makes Kurt feel lighter than air. He could be floating high in the sky, higher than an airship flies, powered by Blaine's trust. He's not a fully trained mechanic and he's not a doctor. But he'll do this for Blaine and for that, he needs to squash any doubts he has that this won't go as planned.

Rachel returns with the winding key, holding it out to Kurt in fingers that are trembling. Kurt takes the key with a nod of thanks and then turns to the task at hand. He briefly looks at Blaine, whose eyes are fixed on whatever Kurt is about to do first. Kurt can't see any fear in them: only determination. Determination and trust.

With a swallow that does nothing to bring any moisture into his dry mouth, Kurt inserts the key into the slot that winds with mechanism and twists. 

* * *

It takes all day, and the box underneath Kurt's arm once he leaves Blaine's apartment is empty of new parts and filled with the exhausted clockwork mechanism that Kurt took from Blaine. He had been right about replacing the pinions and wheels: they are fixable but it'll take Kurt a while to repair everything.

And that had been time Blaine hadn't had.

"You did something incredible today," Rachel says. She left Blaine's apartment with Kurt, giving Blaine a long hug before she dragged Sam out the room to give Kurt and Blaine some privacy. Now she's walking with her arm linked through the crook of Kurt's elbow and is smiling up at him.

Kurt shakes his head. They have to dodge a group of drunken men who have stumbled out of the nearby tavern, but once they are back on their path, Kurt says, "I don't know about incredible-"

"Yes," Rachel insists, shaking Kurt's arm in an attempt to punctuate her point. "Of course it was."

They continue down the cobbled street, Kurt leading them away from Blaine's apartment and towards the garage. "What are you going to do with those?" Rachel asks, pointing to the rattling box of parts.

"I'll repair what I can and use them to fix Jesse," Kurt says. He had already thought of the plan, knowing full well that ordering new set of parts for the automaton now will mean they arrive long after the date set for opening night. "I hope they'll work."

Rachel stops walking and because of her arm linked through his, Kurt stops as well. She's looking at him with a frown. "What do you mean 'I hope they'll work'?" she demands.

Kurt had noticed this when he had removed all the parts he'd needed to from Blaine's clockwork. The wheels, pinions, bearings and springs that needed repairing were highly damaged. There had been a colossal build up of lubrication: Kurt intends to teach Blaine how to properly care for clockwork so that that problem doesn't become recurring in the future. But what Kurt had noticed when he'd removed the final wheel before the balance assembly, was that without repair, the clockwork wouldn't have run for much longer.

The notion had made Kurt halt in his work, staring at Blaine with eyes wide with fear. And he knew that Blaine had known as well: had known the true depth of the damage to the clockwork controlling his pacemaker. Blaine's eyes hadn't looked surprised when Kurt had stared at him, though he brushed off Sam's question as to why Kurt had stopped.

"The pieces are badly damaged, Rachel," Kurt says as an explanation. He's not entirely sure he should tell Rachel just how close Blaine was to a failing pacemaker and therefore a failing heart. "I'll repair them as best I can but they might not work for long in Jesse's mechanism. They'll be put under more pressure in an automaton than in a clockwork pacemaker."

Unfortunately for Kurt, Rachel picks up on what he's not saying. "Blaine didn't have long with that clockwork either, did he?" she asks. Her voice is full of quiet curiosity but her face has paled in the lamp light.

"No," Kurt replies after a moment's hesitation. He's still not sure that he should have said that to Rachel, thinking that that's a secret that should have stayed between Blaine and him.

Rachel takes a deep breath. Her face is still pale but when she speaks her voice isn't shaking. "I'm so glad you helped him then," she says, then tugs at Kurt's arm to get them walking again. "You probably saved his life."

Kurt is silent as they walk. He doesn't want to think that way because the thought that if he'd kept quiet or if Blaine hadn't have fainted right in front of him is not something he wants to dwell on. How he feels about Blaine has changed, especially since that night when Kurt told him why he's not acting in the play. Kurt's always thought Blaine was attractive: those big eyes underneath untameable curls, a smile that seems infectious, shoulders that just fill out his shirts perfectly and an ass that just draws Kurt's eyes when he walks behind Blaine.

But there's more. Blaine is kind, easy to talk to and it's clear that he listens to what Kurt says. He never looked at Kurt with pity when he was talking about his past experiences, he's never been judgemental at the unusual way the play is going to be performed and he's never scoffed at the idea that someone like Kurt would fix twelve clockwork automatons. He's a good friend, incredibly talented and Kurt just doesn't want to think about Blaine being ill, or what might have happened if the pacemaker had failed.

"I know you like him," Rachel says. They've been silent as they walked through the streets and Rachel speaks when they've rounded the last corner before they reach the garage. She's looking at the uneven stones and Kurt takes his eyes off the street ahead to look at her as she speaks. "And I can completely understand why. You deserve to be happy with someone like Blaine, Kurt."

Kurt opens his mouth to reply but Dad's voice breaks through anything he was about to say. It's late so the garage should be closing, if not closed. Kurt had been prepared to unlock the door, drop the box of parts off and then go home. So he's surprised when he sees that the garage is not only open, but all the lights are on, the machines are whirling and Dad is standing in the doorway with a wide smile on his lips and is beckoning to Kurt and Rachel.

"Dad?" Kurt asks when they reach him, "is everything okay?"

"Course kiddo," Dad says. He swings an arm around Kurt's shoulders and steers him towards the small office that doubles as a break room, "Hi Rachel."

"Hi Burt," Rachel says with a wide smile. She follows, her arm still linked with Kurt's. Kurt looks around the garage and sees that just one other employee is inside, goggles over his eyes as he holds a large wheel against the buffer. There's a beautiful automobile just inside the entrance to the garage, copper colored with large white wheels, a small steering wheel and leather seats. The bonnet is open and from the collection of tools by the open bonnet, Dad had been working on the engine when he'd spotted Kurt.

"I'm glad you two stopped by," Dad says as they pass the expensive automobile. Taking another look at it, Kurt knows it belongs to an aristocrat: a rich aristocrat at that. "There's someone I've wanted to introduce you to."

"Dad," Kurt says with a tone of worry in his voice. He doesn't know what Dad could be planning, doesn't know who he has tucked away in the break room. From the look of the automobile, halfway to being fixed, it's probably the owner. Which means a very rich aristocrat is waiting in the same room with the cracked leather sofas that the mechanics have their lunch and supper breaks in, complete with mugs of ale or glasses of gin on occasion. And Kurt can't help but despair about what Dad might have said to convince the aristocrat to stay and meet him.

Dad doesn't reply to Kurt's unasked question about what on earth he's doing. He walks right up to the door of the break room, one arm firmly around Kurt's shoulders and knocks twice. He glances back once to check that Rachel is still there and then opens the door even before the occupant can reply.

When he walks into the room, Kurt is greeted with a sight he'd never thought he'd see. An aristocrat is indeed perched on the old leather couch, her legs delicately crossed, her parasol folded by her side, and her dress far more expensive than the couch she's sat on. It's who is sat in Dad's break room that makes Kurt lose his breath and Rachel gasp.

Kurt knows Isabelle Wright very well: by reputation of course, because he'd never have dreamt to be standing in the same room as her. Isabelle Wright lives in Columbus and in New York but she has a house in the country. Kurt had never realized it was in Lima. She's a fashion designer, pioneering so many of the fashions that have seemingly been around for decades. Kurt has long admired her talent for creating novel fashion ideas: she's an influence on the way he dresses. The short shirt and petticoat Rachel is wearing now comes from Isabelle Wright's design.

She stands once Kurt, Rachel and Dad are in the room, smiling and walking towards them with one hand outstretched. She's wearing one of the most beautiful gowns Kurt has ever seen. The skirt is full, made from a white material and covered in a second shorter dark black satin skirt. She's wearing a tight bodice with a gold-colored lace trim and black lace sleeves. She's also wearing a white lace neckpiece that includes small black pearl looped around her neck but stitched onto the lace. Her hands are covered in small gloves that go no further than her wrists. And it's only when Dad shakes Kurt's shoulder does he snap out of the daze he found himself falling into and realizes that Miss Wright's hand is getting closer and closer.

"Miss Wright," Dad says, "I'd like to introduce my son Kurt Hummel, and his friend and business partner Rachel Berry."

"It's a pleasure," Miss Wright says. Kurt takes the offered hand with his only free one, Rachel's arm falling away, and for a moment flounders. Should he bow? Should he kiss her knuckles? He's never been presented to aristocracy before.

In the end, Miss Wright decides for him. She squeezes his fingers in what is a delicate hand shake and then takes her hand out of Kurt's grip. She offers her hand to Rachel, who takes it and is given the same delicate hand shake.

"I understand that you two own the theater here in Lima," she says, confirming rather than asking. Even her voice is delicate; she's well-spoken and confident in what she says.

"Yes, Miss Wright," Rachel says. Kurt's completely lost his voice, so he's glad Rachel has the ability to reply.

"Mr Hummel was telling me very interesting things about the play you are currently rehearsing," Miss Wright says. She takes a seat again, taking a moment to arrange her skirts and then nods at the other chairs in the room. "Please sit, I'd hate for you to be standing in your own room."

Dad takes the arm chair, leaving Kurt and Rachel to sit on the couch opposite Miss Wright. Kurt leans forward to place the box of parts on the small coffee table in between the two couches and lets the bag of tools fall to the floor with a thud. He can feel the tight band around his head: the goggles he pushed up to sit on his crown rather than take them off. He's never hated himself for not freshening up before. Normally Kurt wouldn't be caught without making his appearance satisfactory but after the day he's had, he hadn't wanted to pause to re-style his hair.

At least the work with Blaine's clockwork wasn't messy and he's confident that there are no unsightly grease stains on his white sleeves.

"You are working with automatons?" Miss Wright asks, looking from Kurt to Rachel.

Again it's Rachel who finds her voice first, her hand sneaking through the crook of Kurt's arm again to clutch at his forearm to give her some semblance of bravado. "Yes, Miss Wright," she repeats, "There are two actors in the play but the rest of the parts are being played by clockwork automatons."

Miss Wright claps her hands together once and laughs. "That sounds delightful. I've never seen a play like that," she says. "Are the automatons difficult to work with?"

"Not at all," Rachel says. She nudges Kurt's shoulder with her own and it snaps Kurt out of the haze he'd been stuck in. "Kurt was able to fix them so well, it's like they are brand new."

That's an exaggeration of course but Kurt doesn't correct her. Dad doesn't either and from the corner of his eye, Kurt sees the smile of pride that is so wide of Dad's face that it must be hurting his cheeks.

Miss Wright turns to look at Kurt. "You fixed them all?" she asks and while her question could be disbelieving, Kurt doesn't hear anything other than polite curiosity in her voice. Of course, she could be – and probably was – taught the art of tact but Kurt wants to believe that she's just curious.

"Yes, Miss Wright," he says, finding his voice for the first time since seeing the beautiful aristocrat, "they are all repaired and ready to perform."

He keeps quiet about Jesse. Kurt's sure she's asking because Dad mentioned something so there's no way she'll know about Jesse. Rachel doesn't say anything either: it's not important to tell Miss Wright that all bar one automaton are repaired.

"What play are you staging?" Miss Wright asks. She had paused for a moment after Kurt's reply, playing with the delicate lace at her small coin purse hung around her wring with a cord made of golden thread.

"_Much Ado About Nothing_," Rachel says immediately.

"I do love a Shakespeare comedy," Miss Wright says with another bright smile, "And when are you staging the first performance?"

Rachel's grip on Kurt's forearm tightens and he feels his throat constrict. "Three weeks tomorrow," he manages to say. Perhaps Miss Wright is being polite and pacifying Dad after he had spoken for hours about Kurt's play. Perhaps she's asking out of some vague curiosity. They haven't been able to sell any of the expensive tickets to the aristocrats yet and Kurt had mentioned to Rachel that they may have to reduce the price and sell them to the ordinary folk just to try and make some more money: which would entirely defeat the point of staging a Shakespeare play for the aristocrats' enjoyment.

"Do you still have some tickets for opening night?" Miss Wright asks, her question breaking through Kurt's reverie and making his heart pound so loudly he's convinced the mechanic in the other room can hear. "I have to return to Columbus for a few days but I will be back in Lima by opening night. I'd love to come and see your performance."

Kurt isn't entirely sure how he manages to hold himself together. He isn't sure how Rachel manages to hold herself together either. All he knows is that Isabelle Wright has just asked to buy tickets to see their play and if she likes the idea enough, she's likely to tell all her aristocrat friends and they too might come and see the play.

Suddenly Kurt is overjoyed that Dad had been talking to a customer about him and the play: it could just be the last piece in the puzzle they need to make the play work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Clockwork Heart**

**Chapter Five**

* * *

Kurt is awake before dawn and hurrying down the streets with his jacket pulled tight around his chest. It's far colder than it should be for a summer's morning but why would Kurt get any luck on the day of opening night? He keeps looking up at the sky and the gray clouds and knows that by the time the audience is walking to the theater, the rain will be falling.

The lamplighters and people who are unlucky enough to work a night shift are the only other people out in the streets at the moment. Kurt sees one lamplighter he recognizes and nods a greeting as he hurries past, flinching as a gust of cold wind buffets him. He has to let go of one side of his jacket in order to slap a hand to the top of his top hat. It's the nicest one he owns and having that roll through the streets, collecting dirt and dew, on opening night will be as bad an omen as the rain.

Dawn is breaking when Kurt reaches the theater, the sun's early morning light cresting the tops of the buildings and giving Kurt enough light to be able to open the door without missing the keyhole the first few times. When Kurt has made these early morning trips to the theater in the middle of winter he has had those embarrassing failed attempts to open the door.

After opening the theater and slipping inside, Kurt shuts the door and the noise echoes around the theater, making it seem like a hundred doors were slammed shut. Kurt's eyes follow the sound, sweeping over the dark theater. But there's something different about it today. It's the same room he's always seen: threadbare carpet, red velvet seats and matching velvet curtains, gold paint on the boxes for the aristocrats, clockwork designs on the ceiling beams and burnt out oil lamps hanging on the walls.

But there is definitely something different.

Kurt doesn't feel the same this morning to how he felt the morning of opening night for_Romeo and Juliet_. He hadn't thought the troupe had been practicing for nearly long enough and, as usual, he'd been completely right. Today he feels excitement coursing through him and a smile forms on his lips as he looks over the theater.

Today might not be perfect, it might not go exactly to plan. It might turn out to be an utter disaster and this will be the last time Kurt unlocks the doors to a theater that has his name on the deed. But as he's fixed up every automaton and seen Rachel and Blaine put the play together piece by piece, he knows they've done far more than their best and he is excited to show the audience what they've been working on.

Besides, he doesn't think it will be a disaster.

Kurt spends the next hour bustling around the theater doing chores that he finished last night but does on the morning of every opening night for good luck. He lights the oil lamps that hang in each box, illuminating the night's thin and barely noticeable layer of dust that Kurt quickly swipes away. He carries an spare oil lamp down the central aisle, swinging it from his right to his left as he looks for trash that could have collected from an unknown source, rips in the fabric of the chairs that he can quickly repair before the audience members sits down, and any fold-up chairs that look like they are stuck and need oiling before being used.

After putting out every oil lamp he just lit, Kurt walks passed every high window and opens the curtains, flooding the room with natural sunlight, weak as the sun shines through the gray clouds and the window glass. He checks the curtains on each side of the stage as well, fussing with the thick gold rope that holds the curtain and patting each fold until it hangs straight.

They had performed the play in its entirety for the final dress rehearsal last night with Kurt in the front row of the seats to watch and the stage is still covered in the props no one wanted to put away last night. Kurt takes the small staircase in two big steps and walks across the stage, bending down to pick up a stray veil. He folds it delicately, not wanting to snag any of the lace, and tucks it under his arm. The other three veils are also on the stage and Kurt is bending down to pick up the second veil when one of the doors opens and closes behind him.

Kurt looks over his shoulder and sees Blaine walking down the central aisle, his jacket buttoned and his own top hat tucked underneath his arm. To Kurt's dismay, there are glistening spots of rain visible in the black fabric.

"Hi Kurt," Blaine says loudly enough for his voice to carry down the hall to where Kurt is standing. His eyebrows furrow as he looks over the stage and then gestures with the hand not holding onto his hat. "What's all that?"

Kurt laughs and looks over his shoulder before replying. "We really should have finished putting everything away last night," he says in lieu of an explanation.

It's more than enough of an explanation however, because Blaine leaves his hat and outdoor coat on a chair like Kurt has done and then climbs up onto the stage. "I'll help you," he says, giving Kurt a wide smile in greeting, "but you'll probably have to help me put everything in their right places."

They work quietly for a few minutes, moving chairs and tables off stage and into the wings. Kurt moves everything into the places they'd been last night, in easy reach for tonight when he's stage right and for Mercedes when she's stage left.

"How are you, Blaine?" Kurt asks, reaching out and resting a hand on Blaine's forearm once they've let go of their loads. Kurt has been asking Blaine that question every day since his impromptu operation.

Blaine has replied to Kurt's question with the same answer every day. He doesn't disappoint, saying, "I'm fine Kurt. Really." But today he looks at Kurt with an expression he can't identify and continues talking, something that's new in this reoccurring discussion. "Thanks to you, I'm going to be fine for a long time."

"Good," Kurt says. He looks down at the table, reaches out towards it as if to move it and then looks back up at Blaine to say, "That's why you agreed to work for us for nothing, isn't it." He phrases it as a statement, rather than a question, because Kurt has been thinking about that for a while.

Whatever the emotion that had been in Blaine's eyes fades and he nods, any trace of a smile or fondness gone. "I didn't think it would work for much longer," he says, his voice quiet, "and every since I was a boy I've wanted to be on stage. So when your offer of a part came up, I wasn't going to turn it down just because of a small problem."

"You call not get paid for three months 'a small problem'?" Kurt asks, laughter in his voice. He's leaning on the table now, the wooden edge cutting into his palms as he presses the whole weight of his body against them. He tries to ignore the clench in his heart when Blaine had said he didn't think his pacemaker would work for much longer.

Blaine laughs and ducks his head. "Small in the grand scheme of things," he says. Then he looks over his shoulder at the stage and the debris of props they still have to collect. "You have something amazing here Kurt, and I can't wait for the people in the audience tonight to see the work you and Rachel have done. And I'm glad to been able to be a part of it all the way through."

Kurt steps away from the table and reaches out to take Blaine's hand. Something in him wants to give Blaine a hug, holding him to make sure that he's not going to fall apart again. But instead Kurt says, "Like we would have said no after your audition."

Again Blaine laughs and his eyes are shining again with the joie de vivre Kurt has seen often since his pacemaker was repaired. Any lasting tension from the topic of Blaine's pacemaker potentially having failed by now disappears, floating away in the wind as if it had never been around.

"Come on," Kurt says, nodding towards the stage and he leads Blaine back to the remains of their props, not letting go of Blaine's hand until he forced to by the need to carry on tidying up the stage.

* * *

Within an hour Rachel has arrived, the smile on her face as wide as Kurt has seen it for a long time. She's already half-dressed in her costume, wearing the burgundy corset and matching headband that she chose as the perfect outfit for Beatrice.

"Kurt!" She says loudly when she sees him, standing on a small step ladder to fix the background of the opening scene to the back of the stage. It's a large canvas painting of a large manor house in summer, and it's perfectly reasonable for the house to be located in modern-day Italy. It's also the first thing Kurt and Rachel found when exploring the storeroom after receiving the keys to the theater.

It's rather fitting, using the first scene they found in the play that could be the last they perform in the theater.

"Kurt," Rachel says as she runs up the stairs to the stage. "Some people stopped in the street to ask about tonight's play. If there were still tickets, when the doors open, if we were putting on any more performances."  
When she reaches him, Rachel rests her hand on Kurt's forearm, gazing up at him with her brown eyes shining with delight. "This is going to work," she says, excitement in her voice. "Today is going to be perfect."

Kurt has had his emotions rise and fall since he awoke, rising to high levels of excitement and falling to a simmering state of happiness and anticipation. Seeing Rachel look so enthralled makes his emotions rise again.

"What did you tell them?" he asks, referring to whether there would be more performances of their play. They'd planned to extend the play's run to at least a week if the audience liked it on opening night.

"I told them that of course there would be more plays," Rachel says, "and that they should come to us tomorrow to purchase tickets."

Rachel steps away, moving far enough on the stage to cast her eyes over the canvas Kurt is hanging. She points to the side Kurt's currently pinning. "That needs to be a little higher, Kurt," she says and then continues, "This play is going to be the making of us. And one day I know we'll look back on this moment with such fond memories."

Kurt dutifully raises the corner of the canvas a little higher, pinning it to the wall in its new location. "We have to get through tonight with no disasters first, Rachel," he says, the voice of reason even through his own excitement. Although, he does believe that Rachel is right.

* * *

Slowly but surely, Kurt, Rachel and Blaine prepare the theater for tonight. After fixing the stage for the opening scene, Kurt and Blaine prepare the wings so that the props are in easy reach and hang the changes of background on the rails that run along the back wall of the stage. The canvas backgrounds can be quickly changed like curtains, covering the painting of the manor house completely and then being removed when they need the first painting again.

Rachel busies herself with preparing the front of house, brushing away dust that Kurt missed in the morning, setting small lanterns at the end of each row to light the way to the seats when the theater is in total darkness. She sets up the tall chairs with long wooden legs by the doors for Sam and Mercedes to sit in while they collect the ticket stubs.

Mercedes arrives just after midday, the band from the tavern in tow. "Hi," she sings and the smile on her face is wide. Happiness is contagious it seems. She gives Kurt a hug, keeping her hands on his arms when she pulls away. "I can't believe opening night is finally here," she says.

"I know," Kurt replies, then glances at the band members. He had mentioned to Mercedes about having live music playing when the audience enters the theater, and live music in the celebration and wedding scenes in the play. Mercedes had talked to her manager and the previous evening had arrived with the band in tow, just like this morning.

"Thanks for coming," Kurt says to them, the five male musicians looking blankly around the room. Each held a case with their instrument, except the man Kurt knows to be the drummer. The drummer nods and that's all the response Kurt gets.

"Do they mind helping us out?" Kurt murmurs to Mercedes when the musicians have walked away to set up the small area to the right of the stage where they will play that evening. "They didn't say anything last night but they don't exactly look happy to be here."

Mercedes shrugs. "I think so. They never really say much," she says. "Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever had a proper conversation with any of them in the last three years."

Looking at the musicians, Kurt says, "I don't even know what their names are."

Mercedes makes a hum of agreement, then shakes her head. "Three years and I don't know them either," she says. She laughs to herself and shakes her head again before looking up at Kurt. "How's Rachel doing today?"

Kurt shoots Mercedes a look, telling her without words that Rachel is exactly how she always is on opening night. "Micromanaging as usual," he says. Rachel has circled the theater three times, fixing many of the things Kurt had fixed when he arrived and even more things that hadn't needed to be fixed at all. "She's insisted that she rehearses the scene with Jesse after the first wedding again. Which means-"

"She'll need all of us to watch and compliment," Mercedes says, interrupting Kurt with the exact words he was going to say.

Kurt laughs, nods and says, "Rachel is nothing but committed. But sometimes she can be a little _too_ committed. Blaine is getting the automatons ready anyway, so what's the harm in appeasing Rachel and getting Jesse ready first?"

Sweeping her hands up and down her dress, Mercedes changes the subject and asks, "I chose this dress especially for today. Do I have your approval?"

Kurt takes a step back and looks over Mercedes' dress. It's a beautiful dress, in a deep purple color and the front of her skirt stitched up to show her legs. She's curled her hair as well, and it is falling round her face to frame it. Kurt has known Mercedes for a long time and has no qualms telling her the truth about how she looks, the same way Mercedes voices her honest opinions about his clothes on occasion.

"You look great, Mercedes," he says sincerely. She beams and Kurt can't help the happiness he feels at Mercedes' effort. He and Rachel had talked about it and had asked Mercedes to announce the play; informing the audience that the play would be starting as well as giving the necessary cue for the automatons.

"What are you wearing tonight?" she asks.

Kurt tugs at his own jacket, which he replaced after preparing the stage for the opening scene. "Pretty much this," he says, gesturing to his black suit pants, black and white suit jacket and white shirt with the top two buttons left open. "I've got my hat – you know the one we bought together where I got the price knocked down to under half-" Mercedes nods and laughs at the memory "-and I've brought a tie with but I'm not sure I'm going to wear it."

Mercedes opens her mouth to reply but Blaine runs into the room, his eyes wide and a panicked look on his face. He runs right up to Kurt and says, "Kurt you need to come quick. There's a problem with Jesse."

* * *

Kurt almost runs to the small office that he made into the room to house the automatons. He's breathing hard but not from the exertion: his heart is racing from panic and his mind is whirling from thinking about what could possibly be wrong with Jesse.

He reaches the room, throws open the door and walks inside, automatically reaching towards the small table just next to the door where he left his tool box last night. He grabs the goggles and slips them over his head, adjusting the strap until it's comfortable and then positioning the goggles just above his eyes.

The other eleven automatons are up and moving, walking around the room or gazing at each other. Tina is the most animated, walking over to Kurt and Blaine when they enter the room and standing next to her on-stage partner. Mercedes, who has followed after yelling for Rachel, stands in the doorway, leaning against the door post.

"Blaine," Kurt says, stripping off his suit jacket and shoving it into his hands, "hold this."

Jesse is the only automaton not on his feet. He's slumped in a chair, looking like someone who has fallen asleep after drinking far too much gin. The key used to wind the mainspring is sticking out of his back, like Blaine was halfway through winding the automaton before realising something was very wrong.

Kurt walks around the chair, rolling up the white sleeves of his dress shirt to just above his elbows as he does. He'd worn his best clothing today because he really hadn't thought he'd be doing any mechanical repairs apart from superficial ones. He pushes Jesse's body forward until it folds over and completely reveals his back. He pulls at the key, removing it and gives that to Blaine as well. Glancing up at Blaine when he hands him the key, Kurt says, "Tell me what happened."

In a voice that shakes, Blaine says, "I was winding them all like you showed me. I was going to start with Jesse so Rachel could rehearse again but the key was sort of stuck so I wound the rest of them first. But I just couldn't wind the clockwork in Jesse. And something went, well, clunk when I tried again. And that's when I ran to get you."

Carefully, Kurt pries open the plates of metal, sticking his fingers in the free space down the side of Jesse's torso to move the metal. Holding the plate that makes up Jesse's back, he pulls the goggles over his eyes and takes a look. He can see the repaired wheels, looking under strain and ready to be replaced. But it's the pinions that catch his gaze. So many of them needed repairing when he came to fix Jesse and he'd only had the old broken pieces from Blaine's clockwork to use.

He had managed to repair Jesse using those parts from Blaine's clockwork. He had had to spend a day in Dad's garage, sanding down each bearing, replacing broken teeth on the wheels and refitting the jewels just to get the clockwork started. He gratefully put in another order for brand new parts and had said to Dad that he thought the parts from Blaine's clockwork would work well enough to get them through the wait for the new parts to be delivered. Then when they arrived, Kurt would repair Jesse again.

Although now it seemed that they wouldn't even make it past opening night.

"What's wrong?" Rachel says. Kurt glances up to see her standing with Mercedes in the doorway, hanging onto Mercedes' hand like it was her lifeline. "Is he okay? Is he going to work?"

Kurt sticks his hand inside Jesse, moving past the wheels of the mechanism until he can reach the part of the clockwork that had fallen out when Blaine tried to wind him. He picks it up with the tips of his fingers and slowly – very slowly – pulls it out.

Something sinks in Kurt's stomach. Any excitement he had at the beginning of the day has fled as if it were a dream chased away by the sun. In the palm of his hand is the safety pinion: a part of the clockwork that unscrews only when the mainspring is broken. And if the mainspring is broken then there's no way Jesse will work.

"Well?" Rachel demands, still not moving from her spot at the door.

Resigned, Kurt reaches up and pulls the goggles off his head. He sighs, looking at the pinion in his hand. At least the rest of the clockwork was saved from being destroyed. That was the job of the safety pinion after all.

"We have to cancel the show," he says rather than directly answering her question. Although as soon as he says it, Kurt thinks that that might not have been the best way to announce to Rachel that her on-stage clockwork partner was broken and there wasn't enough time to fix him.

"What?" Rachel cries, "Why? Why can't you fix him?"

Finally Kurt looks away from the pinion, closing his fingers around it and feeling the cool metal against his warm skin. "The mainspring is broken Rachel. There's nothing I can do without a replacement."

"And don't you have a replacement? There was more than enough time to buy supplies," Rachel says, her eyes blazing with dismay.

Kurt just raises one of his eyebrows. Of course he had a replacement: it is just being used somewhere else, and somewhere more important. He sees Blaine blush when the silence stretches a little longer than if he had just been pausing to think. It's not Blaine's fault that his clockwork pacemaker needed repairing and there's no way that Kurt will let Rachel say that either.

To her grace, Rachel looses a little of the wild panic in her eyes but she still says, "And you don't have another one? Why can't you fix him?"

Kurt shakes his head and says, "The new parts haven't come in yet and using a mainspring that doesn't fit the barrel won't change a thing." He looks around the room, looking for an analogy to use to explain the problem to the non-mechanics. "It's like an airship without any fuel. Jesse can't run because we can't wind the clockwork: just like an airship can't fly if there's no fuel for the fire to fill the balloon."

"Oh god," Rachel says after a long moment of silence. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth.

"I'm so sorry Kurt," Blaine says, his voice quiet but carrying loudly through the silent room. Even the other automatons have stopped moving, as if they can sense that something is very wrong.

Kurt looks up at Blaine, shocked to hear the apology. For a moment Kurt wonders if Blaine was apologizing for breaking the clockwork or for taking the parts he needed: Kurt chooses to think that it's the first option. "It's not your fault," he says. He walks over to Blaine and rests his hands over Blaine's, "This would have happened no matter who wound Jesse."

"But, what can we do about the play?" Blaine asks. His eyes are wide and Kurt can see the despair in Blaine's eyes as clear as if he was reading a book. "We can't cancel it: not without you two losing the theater. And that can't happen: you two have worked too hard for this theater."

"What part do you need to replace?" Mercedes asks, speaking for the first time in what seems like hours.

Somehow Kurt knows she's not talking about the clockwork. "Benedick," he says. Why had Rachel insisted on using Jesse to play one of the main parts, when he was obviously the hardest automaton to fix? Kurt had wanted Jake to play the part but even delving into Jake's thought-processor to change which character he is playing won't save the play now. They'd need to find another Don Pedro and all the alterations to their play – like Signior Leonato being changed to Signora Leonata – would have to be added too. There isn't enough time to programme another automaton to take the place.

The silence is so absolute, Kurt can hear the public outside. A child is laughing and the slap of his shoes against the wet cobblestones is audible even through the small window. Kurt remembers what Rachel said about the excited audience members and another part of his stomach drops. They'll have to be turned away and given their money back. Money that he and Rachel simply cannot afford to return.

With this broken automaton, their dreams have shattered. Shattered like the mainspring in Jesse's clockwork.

"I don't think you have to cancel the play," Mercedes says. Her voice makes Kurt look up and sees her staring at him with determination on her face. Was she about to offer to play Benedick? But she was looking at Kurt with that determination, not at the other three.

"What do you mean?" Rachel says.

"Kurt, don't you know every line?" Mercedes asks. A chill runs through Kurt and he can feel the gooseflesh run over his body. The hairs on his arms even rise like it's winter rather than summer.

Surely she can't be insinuating that Kurt should take the role? After the last time he stepped on stage and was laughed off and Kurt had spent a week hiding in Mercedes' apartment, surely she knows exactly what that would do to him?

Rachel gasps and runs to Kurt, grabbing onto his arm. "Yes," she says with excitement and delight in her voice, "Kurt you have to do it. You can be Benedick and this will fix all our problems."

"No," Kurt says. He's already began to tremble, hearing the mocking laughter, the words of so-called advice, the cruel tones when he overheard the professionals talking about his auditions. "Rachel, I can't."

But Rachel doesn't listen. "We should start rehearsing now. I know that you can act and you've acted as Benedick in our rehearsals before but especially the scene in the chapel, we need to practice that-"

"Rachel, no," Kurt says more forcefully this time. To his horror, his voice cracks. Blaine, whose hands he's still holding on to, looks at him with concern. He goes to speak but Kurt starts talking first. "I can't do it. I'd ruin the play. We're better off cancelling."

"Kurt-" Blaine says but Rachel cuts him off.

"Don't be silly, Kurt. You won't. Besides, we don't have another choice. Now your costume," she says, stepping away from Kurt and looking him up and down. Blaine's hands shift until he's holding Kurt's and they squeeze but Kurt can barely feel them. The blood is rushing in his ears – or is that the memory of the laughter?

"You need to go back home and pick out something more formal than even what you're wearing. Blaine and I are wearing formal outfits for the play and you'll need to match," Rachel says. She's acting like she can't see the terror on Kurt's face and when she pauses for breath, Kurt pulls away from her and from Blaine.

"I can't Rachel," he says, forcing her to stop talking and look up at him. He stands stock still for a moment, surrounded by the three people he called the closest in his life and the automatons he painstakingly fixed. The idea of acting in the play that will either make or break their theater dreams has his heart racing and his hands trembling.

He can't be here.

So he leaves. Kurt pushes past Rachel and Mercedes, not turning around when he hears them call his name. Footsteps sound behind him but Kurt runs out of the backstage area, into the main theater. He runs up the aisle and slams into one of the doors, opens it and is outside in the thankfully bright noon sunlight before whoever was following makes it into the main room.

Without a look behind him, Kurt walks away from the theater, into the growing crowd congregating outside, waiting impatiently for that evening and the play to begin.

* * *

Kurt walks and walks until his growling stomach makes him stop and buy a greasy pastry fresh out of the oven. He barely gives the shopkeeper a smile as he hands over the money he luckily had in the pocket of his pants. Kurt eats the pastry in two large bites and it appeases his rumbling stomach. But once the hunger pains have gone, the nerves creep back in.

Seven years ago, Kurt would have jumped for joy to be given an opportunity like this. He would have offered even before Mercedes had pointed it out. Kurt does know every line and he could, theoretically, step in and play Benedick to Rachel's Beatrice.

But that's nice in theory. There's no way he can do it. Every audition he ever went for was a disaster and he can't live through that again.

Kurt walks through the town, dodging pedestrians and shopkeepers until he reaches the square with the large fountain. Water is billowing out of the top of the fountain and Kurt feels the water spray on his face. For a moment, he stops walking and just lets the water splash, the fountain the only sound in his ears. Even with the people moving in the street jostling him, Kurt finds the whole scenario somewhat peaceful.

There's no way he can be Benedick. He can't get up on stage to see people stand and leave, or stay and laugh. He can't decide which would be worse. Kurt used to dream all the time of when he would be a stage in front of a loud, applauding audience. He loved performing for Dad, the other mechanics, friends at school and Mom before she died. He would plan small monologues or sing short songs whenever he could. And he had had no doubt that he'd be able to make it to Broadway within a few short years.

But each audition has crushed that dream for him to a point where Kurt used to think he'd never have a chance at his dream again. And now it's here, he can't take it.

"Mr Hummel?" a voice calls, breaking through the mist of water spray and contemplation in his mind. Kurt opens his eyes, not realizing that he'd closed them, and turns to look behind him. His heart stops when he sees Isabelle Wright standing there.

She looks beautiful in her gown, her parasol held in one hand, and Kurt is very aware that he might be wearing one of his best suits and by far one of his favorite outfits but his hair is messed up, his sleeves are rolled to his elbows and he's still wearing the goggles around his forehead.

"Miss Wright," he says, stumbling over the words only a little. There is very little he could do to change his appearance. Kurt reaches up and takes the goggles off his head and begins to roll down one of the sleeves on his shirt. "It's good to see you again."

No it's not. Any other day, Kurt would be overjoyed to have someone like Isabelle Wright greeting him in the street. But today, where he'll probably have to tell her right now that the play is cancelled, he wishes that he hadn't bumped into her.

"And it's good to see you too, Kurt," Miss Wright says. Her smile drops for a moment and she says, "If I can call you Kurt."

Kurt nods, because he doesn't mind the informality coming from someone like Isabelle. He's not going to presume the same. Deftly, Kurt buttons the cuff of his shirt sleeve with one hand and only glancing at the cuff once. He then takes hold of the goggles in his other hand and starts working on rolling down the other sleeve.

"I must say, Kurt, that I am greatly looking forward to the performance tonight," Miss Wright says, and Kurt feels his stomach clench in horror at her words, "I brought a friend back from Columbus and he's looking forward to the play as well."

And now she's brought an aristocrat friend to see their play. Kurt's heart clenches along with his stomach. He can't tell her that they are cancelling the play, not only because they can't afford to give her the money she spent on tickets back. He doesn't want to disappoint her. Isabelle looks happy to be seeing Kurt now, and to be telling him about her excitement for the play that evening. She has a smile on her face that Kurt just doesn't want to see her lose.

"Your father told me more about the situation with the theater when I was invited back to the garage the other day," Miss Wright says, stepping closer to Kurt and resting a hand on Kurt's still-uncovered wrist. "He mentioned the other plays with troupes that didn't work out."

Kurt keeps his facial expression as a polite smile but inside he rolls his eyes. He has no idea what she could be saying. Dad means well but Kurt can't help but wonder if he's given Isabelle Wright a little too much information about the situation. He might as well have said that they had serious money problems as well.

"I think it's really good that you and Miss Berry are trying again," Miss Wright says, "That you two are that committed to your dreams. If I had been as committed as you are, I would never have had the problems that I've had throughout my career."

Again, Kurt keeps his face polite but this time his insides are twisting. He has to replay her words in his mind to fully understand that she's comparing their situations, and saying that Kurt is the admirable one.

"I have no doubt," Miss Wright says, cutting through Kurt's musings, "that tonight will be an absolute success." She gives him a wide and genuine smile.

_Thank you but I'm afraid that as one of our automaton is broken, the play is cancelled._

That's what Kurt should say. That's what Kurt needs to say. It's the truth and having a play cancelled on opening night hours before it begins is only slightly worse than having a play cancelled on opening night when the audience is already in their seats.

But at some point in the conversation with Isabelle, Kurt's tumbling nerves and disbelief have calmed, far better than standing in the spray of the water fountain has done. He's still nervous but in the back of his mind, eighteen year old Kurt Hummel is eagerly shouting that of course he can act. It's exactly what he wanted to do ever since seeing _Wicked_ in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion all those years ago. And Isabelle Wright telling him that picking himself up off the ground to try again is admirable has just pushed away the wall of doubt he had built since leaving the theater.

So instead of telling her that the play is cancelled, Kurt says, "Thank you. I do hope you'll enjoy the play tonight."

Isabelle nods and glances around at the other pedestrians as if she's looking for someone. "If you'll excuse me Kurt," she says when she looks back at him, "I must run and meet my friend before tonight. But I hope to see you after the show to give you my personal congratulations."

And she leaves. Kurt stands still but he feels light, as if he's an airship that's been pumped full of air and is about to take-off. Disbelief begins to set in, bringing back the memories of the auditions, the scorn and the laughter but Kurt tries to pay the memories no heed. He can't back out now and the eighteen-year-old dreamer that still lives somewhere inside him is reminding him of that.

If Kurt backed out now, he'd not only be letting Isabelle Wright down but he'd be letting down Dad, who has obviously been proudly telling all of his customers about Kurt's play. He'd be letting Mercedes down, and Sam and Blaine and Rachel. Kurt doesn't want to let either Blaine or Rachel down, not after the days of work both have put into the play. And the years of work he and Rachel have spent to make it just to this point.

And he'd be letting himself down. Eighteen year old Kurt who turned up to his first audition with bright eyes and a smile so wide it hurt his cheeks for hours would have accepted the role before he'd thought it over. So why did twenty-five year old Kurt turn it down just as fast.

Kurt has to take the role of Benedick now. And maybe – just maybe – he won't hear the laughter or the mocking when he takes to the stage and acts.

* * *

Kurt returns to the theater after making a stop at his apartment. He changes his boots from his thigh-high buckled favorites to black boots and beige spats that cover most of the shoe and reach his knees. He also picks up another jacket, rolling his eyes when he realizes that his black and white striped jacket is still in the theater with Blaine. This suit jacket is a tailcoat and purple and by far one of the most expensive pieces of clothing Kurt owns. It's also one of the pieces of clothing that Kurt wears with pride.

When deciding costumes, Rachel had said that because it was set in modern times, wearing their smartest summer clothing would do just fine. She had said it with a grimace and Kurt had agreed – costumes are by far one of his favorite parts of staging a play – but they just couldn't afford to spend any money on new fabric. The outfit that Kurt's chosen will work perfect for Benedick in their play.

He walks quickly back to the theater and while he ignores all the attempts to talk from the people milling around the entrance, Kurt notices with a relieved sigh that the rain from that morning has stopped. It's mid afternoon and the sun is high in the blue sky and the only reminder that the morning started out gray are the drying puddles on the cobblestones.

That has to be a good omen.

Blaine, Mercedes, Rachel and Sam – who obviously arrived after Kurt left – are waiting nervously in the large dressing room backstage. Rachel has changed into her full costume and is sitting at one of the large mirrors powdering her nose. She is the only one who doesn't jump up with surprise when Kurt walks inside.

Blaine, still holding onto Kurt's jacket, is at Kurt's side almost instantly, "Kurt, is everything okay?" he asks, looking worried as well as nervous. "We still need to-"

Kurt shakes his head and Blaine stops immediately. Taking a deep breath, Kurt says, "I'll do it. I'll be Benedick."

Rachel turns around, her hair flying over her shoulder and brushing against the mirror. Blaine gives a smile but there's still worry in his eyes. Mercedes and Sam move in closer, Mercedes with a joyous smile on her lips and she opens her mouth to speak but Kurt interrupts again.

"But," he says, raising a finger and looking at all of them, "I'm only doing this because the show must go on. As seen from previous experience, this is probably not going to end well."

"Don't be silly Kurt," Rachel says. She finally stands up and walks over to join the crowd around Kurt. "You are going to be a fantastic Benedick. And anyone who doesn't see that just isn't a real connoisseur of theatre."

Rachel reaches out and throws her arms around Kurt's neck, drawing him in close for a hug. Needing to feel some reassurance after the emotional turmoil of the last hour and a half, Kurt hugs her tightly. Rachel is pushy and her words sent him into that turmoil but she's still his best friend and it helps his chattering nerves somewhat.

"Now," Rachel says matter-of-factly after she lets Kurt go, "me, you and Blaine need to do our make-up. Opening night is only an hour or two away."

* * *

The theater is finally full of people who are eagerly waiting to see the play on stage. The band is playing soft music to welcome everyone inside. The lamps are lit at the end of the rows of seats and in the boxes, and the audience are checking their tickets against the row and seat number to make sure they are sitting in the seat they paid for.

Kurt is peering through one of the gaps in the curtains, standing just at the edge of the wings. His heart is pounding and he's sure that anyone who is standing remotely close to him can hear the rapid heartbeat. Now that the time is here, he can't really believe what happened this morning. He left his apartment after he woke expecting to be supporting Rachel and Blaine and instead he'll be sharing the stage with them.  
The nerves and memories have crept back in and while Kurt knows full well that he can't back out now, he really wants to.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Blaine asks, coming up behind Kurt and resting a hand in the middle of Kurt's back. "You look like you're about to rip the curtain from the rail."

Kurt looks down at his hands and sees that his knuckles have gone white while he grips onto the fabric. "Oh," he says and lets the curtain fall out of his hands. "And I'm fine. Just a little nervous."

Looking over his shoulder at Blaine, Kurt sees the disbelieving look on his face and has to agree. Kurt isn't just a little nervous and it is obvious.

"I just don't want this to go wrong and have it be all my fault," Kurt says quickly, as if saying it fast will hurt less, "Those people out there are just going to laugh when they see someone like me playing a character like Benedick."

"No they won't Kurt," Blaine says immediately. "They will be amazed by how talented you are, and how great your portrayal of Benedick is. Anyone who laughs will be laughing out of delight, not mockery."

Kurt turns around and steps closer to Blaine. His hair is neatly gelled on his head, which isn't different to how he wears it normally, and he's wearing a blue bow tie around his neck. With a quick tug to the right side, Kurt straightens it and then nods his approval.

"Thank you," he says, looking up in Blaine's amber eyes.

But anything he was going to say is interrupted by a voice saying, "Hey kiddo, Mercedes told me that you-"

Kurt turns to look at Dad, stepping away from Blaine. He feels his cheeks blush, not having realized just how close he and Blaine had been standing. "Dad," he says and his eyes flick from Dad to Blaine. It's not like they doing anything wrong: they were just standing very close.

Blaine rests his hand on Kurt's elbow and says, "I'll leave you two." With a nod at Kurt and then at Dad, he leaves them.

Dad looks at Kurt with one eyebrow raised and in response Kurt feels his cheeks heat up even more. "You two seem close," Dad says with a tease in his voice.

Teasing from his Dad, however loving, is something that Kurt doesn't want right now. The nerves in his stomach are twisting and tumbling and he's spending all his energy on keeping the mocking laughter out of his ears.

He looks at the wooden floorboards under his feet and shakes his head, as much to clear the blush as to change the subject with Dad. "I guess Mercedes told you that I'm acting tonight," he says when he looks back up at Dad.

Dad nods. "Yeah kiddo, she did," he says, taking the cue to change the subject. He walks closer, rests his hands on Kurt's shoulders and says, "I wanted to come back here to tell you how proud of you I am. Taking this role at the last minute after what's happened to you in the past. It's so wonderful and I'm going to be watching you with so much pride from the seats."

Kurt moves into Dad's embrace, tucking his head over Dad's shoulder and closing his eyes as he feels Dad's arms surround him. "Thanks, Dad," he whispers and the Hummels stand still for a few moments, the sounds of the audience settling into their seats around them.

"What's the phrase Rachel uses?" Dad asks after their hug, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, "Break an arm?"  
Kurt laughs and says, "It's 'break a leg', Dad."

Dad nods and gives Kurt a smile that doesn't fail to make him return it full fold. "Well, you break a leg kiddo. I'll be the one in the front giving the standing ovation."

With another quick and tight hug, Dad turns and leaves Kurt standing by the curtain. The nerves are ever-present but Kurt doesn't resume staring through the gap in the fabric. He stands and waits in the wings, pacing in a small circle when the nerves make him want to fidget and passes the time between opening the theater doors and beginning the show.

Footsteps against the wooden stage make Kurt look up and Rachel hurries over to him, running as fast as her heeled shoes will let her. She looks nervous now and that only makes Kurt's stomach clench even more. He's suddenly glad he hasn't had anything to eat since the pastry: he'd probably have thrown it up by now.

Rachel being nervous is never a good thing.

"Kurt," she says when she reaches him, keeping her voice quiet so she's not overheard by anyone standing too close to the stage. "I've just seen someone walk into the theater with Isabelle Wright, and I think you need to see who it is."

She walks back across the stage, dragging Kurt the way she came and stops at the other end of the curtain. There's another gap in the curtains on the right side of the stage but when Kurt moves to peer through it, Rachel stops him.

"Although, I don't want to make you more nervous," she says, the concern for Kurt now shining through her own nerves at seeing the newcomer.

Blaine is also standing by the gap in the curtains, waiting stage right with the other automatons and where Kurt should be for his cue to walk on the stage but he's not peering through the curtains. He looks curiously from Rachel to Kurt but doesn't say anything.

"Now I have to know," Kurt says, barely glancing at Blaine and Rachel dutifully steps aside.  
Kurt peers through the curtain, searching until he finds the box where Isabelle is sat. She's wearing different clothes to what she was wearing when Kurt saw her earlier than day and is talking animatedly with her companion. Kurt gasps, clapping a hand to his mouth when he recognizes who she's talking to.

"Oh my dear god," Kurt mumbles through his hand. He'd recognize the bedazzled coat and matching silk top hat anywhere.

"Who is it?" Blaine asks, trying to look through the small gap over Kurt's shoulder.

"Starchild," Kurt whispers. Blaine makes a questioning sound, as if he's never heard of the famous actor, and Kurt explains, "Elliott Gilbert, aka Starchild. He's an actor on Broadway who only ever accepts the most challenging roles and performs them to adoring crowds who will wait months to see him."

"He's played almost every Shakespeare role there is, and he's even performed in musicals for the aristocrats in New York and Los Angeles," Rachel adds, her voice high and tight with nerves.

Kurt straightens, taking his eyes away from Starchild and staring at Rachel. His chest feels constricted, like his jacket is suddenly four sizes too small. "I can't go on now," he says, his voice cracking, "Starchild has seen professionals perform _Much Ado_, and has _been_ a professional performing _Much Ado_. I'm certainly going to look like an untalented fool in his eyes."

Rachel takes his hands but before she can say anything the background noise and accompanying music in the theater stops. Footsteps sound on the stage just in front of the curtains and they stop when Mercedes reaches center stage.

"Welcome to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion," she says in a voice that booms throughout the theater.

"Oh god," Kurt says, turning away from the stage and debating running back into the wings and hiding for the rest of the performance.

"Kurt," Rachel whispers, "you'll be fine. I believe in you and you, Blaine and I will get through this night together. I'm sure Starchild won't mind that it's a little rough."

Kurt looks back at Rachel to see her glance nervously at the stage. April and Tina are already standing center stage in the positions needed to begin the play, with half of the other automatons around them like an entourage. Rachel turns to Kurt and says one last thing before walking out to take her place with them.

"We'll be fine. You'll see."

Kurt watches her walk away, smoothing down her skirt and taking a deep breath. He'd believe her a little more if she hadn't looked so nervous as she's spoken.

"There's is one change to the program that you were expecting," Mercedes is saying. Blaine takes Kurt's hand in the wings, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. The warmth from Blaine's hand settles the jarring nerves but Kurt still can't breathe properly.

"Tonight, and for the foreseeable future," Mercedes says, using the exact words they'd discussed at length moments before opening the doors to the audience, "The role of Benedick will not be played by the clockwork actor you were expecting. Instead, the role will be played by Mr Kurt Hummel."

There is a small amount of polite applause after Mercedes pauses, and Kurt can feel his breath hitch. Their applause could be minutes away from being mocking laughter, a sound that Kurt knows will never leave his ears if he hears it in his own theater.

"And now, I am overjoyed to present the Hummel and Berry production of _Much Ado About Nothing_," Mercedes says and the footsteps sound again. The curtain rustles as she steps behind it, smiling widely and not noticing how pale Kurt looks in the candlelight.

She walks to the front of the stage and pulls at the cords that control the curtains. They swing open to reveal the stage and the audience gives a long applause at the sight. Two automatons standing grouped together with Rachel in front of a beautiful painting of a manor house. Sam's lighting illuminates the three characters and a second light turns on just in time to catch Sunshine as she walks from the left wings towards the group in the middle.

She's reached the group when the applause stops and, timing it perfectly, hands a letter to April with the theater in utter silence.

The opening scene of the play passes without anything amiss. Rachel has performed this scene over and over again, changing the order of appearance of the characters and who will be onstage with them. She delivers her lines flawlessly, just as Kurt has seen her do far too many times over the past three months.

Kurt's entrance is approaching and he's glad they've chosen a play where the entrance of his character is surrounded by all the other characters. At least he won't be walking into the spotlight by himself.

"He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio!" Rachel says to the laughter of the audience, "If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured."

Blaine tugs on their hands, pulling Kurt further into the wings and into position. The moment has come. He leans in and whispers in Kurt's ear, "Break a leg, Kurt." His breath brushes against Kurt's skin and it sends a shiver down his spine that has nothing to do with nerves.

Kurt smiles and whispers, "You too. Break a leg, Blaine."

"I will hold friends with you, lady." Sunshine says.

"Do, good friend," Rachel replies, laughing first with Tina and then with April.

"You will never run mad, neice," April says, her hands on her copper hips and the gaze on her copper face so maternal that it is hard to believe it is a clockwork automaton acting.

"No, not till a hot January," Rachel says and laughs again. Her eyes flick to the wings where Kurt is standing.

The automatons around Kurt and Blaine start moving at the exact same time, following Jake out into the open stage. Blaine and Kurt are walking just behind Jake, Blaine further downstage than Kurt. He's grateful for that as it gives him a small amount of protection from the eyes of the audience. At least for the small amount of time before his first line.

"Don Pedro is approached," Sunshine says over the applause the audience is giving them as the new characters join the play. As one, Rachel and the automatons bow to greet the new characters.

Being on stage for the first time in years is strange for Kurt. He feels hot, from the glare of the lights and the stares of the audience. The nerves are strong, dancing through his body like a lightning bolt. However, they aren't crippling like they were only hours ago. Now Kurt feels alive. The laughter is still ringing in his ears, but it's muted. It's as if being on stage and in a situation Kurt has wanted to be in, but in the recent past has believed he'll never get there, has stopped the memories from being so powerful.

"Good Signora Leonata," Jake says and Kurt sighs with relief. The first change of name and gender for the character had been difficult for the automaton: Kurt had had to tinker with Jake's thought-processor multiple times before he said 'Leonata' throughout the entire play, "are you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it."

April rises from her bow first, and says, "Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave."

April and Jake step closer and embrace, the meeting of the metal of their bodies going smoothly and with as little jarring metal-hitting-metal sound as possible. At that cue, the rest of the characters who had been bowing rise and watch the meeting with polite interest.

"You embrace your charge too willingly," Jake says, and then turns to Tina. He holds out his hand to take Tina's and bows low to press a metal kiss to her knuckles. Perfectly on cue, Blaine gasps with delight as Claudio sees Hero for the first time in the play.

"I think this is your daughter," he says with a nod to April.

"Her father hath many times told me so," April says and the audience laugh as one.  
Kurt steps forward, moving to stand close to the small group. He passes Blaine on his way to center stage and can't help but glance at Rachel, who discreetly gives him a tiny smile of encouragement.

He takes a deep breath and says his first line, "Were you in doubt, madam, that you asked him?"

Kurt waits and he hears laughter. For a second he freezes, his face schooled in the mocking expression of Benedick's but he can't move. The audience are laughing. And it's not his memories: this is real laughter.

But then Jake says, "You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady mothers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable mother."

The laughter has stopped. Kurt takes a deep breath and delivers his second line as quickly as he can, "If Signora Leonata be her mother, she would not have her head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like her as she is."

There's no more laughter and a voice in the back of his mind shouts at him to carry on. The first of the many Benedick and Beatrice scenes is moments away from starting and this is no time to freeze after hearing the audience laugh.

Especially as the laughter was not mocking and was not laughter at Kurt's acting. _Much Ado_ is a comedy and somewhere in the midst of his nerves, Kurt forgot that the audience will be laughing during the play.

He relaxes and the feeling of the joy of life floods through him again. Rachel is walking closer now, standing next to Tina and says, "I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you."

"What, my dead Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?" Kurt says, loud enough for his voice to boom around the theater. The familiar feeling of enjoying the spotlight and the attention is returning from wherever Kurt had hidden it after the last of his attempted auditions. Kurt glances into the audience, his face turning away from Rachel like they had planned, and sees Dad and Carole in the front, beaming and his nerves shrink a little more.

"Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?" Rachel says, one hand on her hip. "Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence."

This is a scene that Kurt and Rachel had rehearsed in the late afternoon before the doors opened. Kurt had known he could perform it but Rachel had insisted on rehearsing one final time for this scene and the scene in the chapel after the failed wedding of Claudio and Hero. And the scene they are performing now runs as smoothly as it has ever done, even including the pauses Kurt and Rachel are forced to give for the laughter of the audience.

After a few minutes, the stage has emptied except for Kurt and Blaine. Kurt walks over to a table laden with cups and empty water pitchers and pours himself a glass. Taking a long sip of the empty cup, Kurt waits for Blaine to say his first line.

"Benedick," Blaine says, coming close to the table but standing far enough away that they aren't crowded in a small corner, "didst thou note the daughter of Signora Leonata?"

It's the same scene Kurt and Blaine had been rehearsing when Blaine had fainted because his pacemaker failed. Kurt will remember that moment for a long time, so as he and Blaine flawlessly move through their lines, it helps calm any residual nerves in Kurt's stomach.

Jake joins them again after a few minutes and the three walk around the stage discussing Claudio's feelings for Hero. "-and in such great letter as they write 'Here is good horse to hire'," Kurt says as he approaches his last few lines in this scene, "let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'"

"In the meantime, Signior Benedick," Jake says, as he places a hand on Kurt's shoulder, "repair to Leonata's, commend me to her and tell her I will not fail her at supper; for indeed she hath made great preparation."

Kurt bows, throwing his hands out to his sides in a mocking gesture, and says "And so I leave you."

He walks off towards the left of the stage and into Rachel's open arms. The smile on her face is wide and contagious and Kurt is smiling moments later.

"Kurt that was fantastic," she says in a whisper but the happiness, sincerity and pride in her voice is obvious, "I knew you would be wonderful."

Kurt doesn't say anything in reply but he doesn't lose his smile either. In the course of less than fifteen minutes, his nerves at taking the stage for the first time in years have vanished and he feels exactly like he did when he left school before all those failed auditions. He loves the feeling of being on stage and having hundreds of people watching him perform. Acting has been the one thing that gave Kurt true joy and until he stepped on that stage, he had forgotten that.

A small voice tells him that they still have a long play to perform and there are still plenty of opportunities for the audience to turn against him, especially in the scene where Benedick and Beatrice will kiss, but Kurt resolutely ignores that voice and watches Blaine and Jake on stage.

Kurt's dream was never really to own a theater: it was to be the one standing on stage in front of adoring crowds. And somewhere along the way to that dream, Kurt just forgot. Or perhaps he was made to forget, with the numerous terrible experiences throughout his auditions.

But he been reminded, as if a lightning bolt has run right through him, and Kurt never wants to forget this feeling of being alive again.

* * *

The one scene that Kurt was worried about dragging up the memories of his auditions even after his epiphany arrives far quicker than he wants. The part of the play between the intermission and now has gone by in a flash and now Rachel has moved to the part of the stage where she'll stand for the beginning of their scene and Kurt is waiting for his cue.

Unique is in the middle of walking off the stage, her hands around April's shoulders and taking everyone except for Kurt and Rachel with her. Kurt takes a deep breath to steady himself as he hears her say, "This wedding day perhaps is but prolonged. Have patience, and endure."

That's the cue he has been waiting for. Kurt waits until they have completely cleared the stage but turning to look at Rachel. Sam – who had hurried down to the backstage area during the intermission to give his own congratulations and wishes of luck for the second half of the play – slowly illuminates the stage where Rachel is standing and has been weeping.

"Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?" Kurt says, walking over to stand next to Rachel.

"Yea, and I will weep a while longer," Rachel says, wiping at the tears under her eyes. More fall down her cheeks and Kurt is struck for a moment at how dedicated Rachel is to her part, and how the acting school and theater troupes were fools to turn her down as well, claiming she was too young and too green for any roles they have available.

Both he and Rachel were wrongly passed over during their many years of auditioning for everything that came along. And now, with the eyes of a hundred people watching him, Kurt can freely admit it.

There is a slow build up of declarations of love from both Kurt and Rachel before the moment Kurt's been dreading. They had planned to walk slowly from the right side of the stage, where the scene begins, to the center for the climax of the scene and it's only when Kurt is following Rachel does he feel the panic inside.  
He's been in a similar situation before, something he doesn't like to talk about often. He didn't mention it in detail when he was telling Blaine about his past audition experiences and both Rachel and Mercedes know not to bring it up.

"A very even way, but no such friend," Rachel says, still with her back to Kurt so she's blissfully unaware of his internal panic.

He had been auditioning for the romantic lead for a troupe that travelled mainly around the East Coast. Kurt had figured that that would have been the best way to get to New York, so he had auditioned for the role even though it was an original play that wasn't that good. But when he'd met his scene partner for the audition and they'd appeared on stage in front of the directors, it had taken mere minutes for them to dissolve into laughter at the thought of Kurt playing their romantic lead. He'd tried to continue, but going in for the scripted kiss, his scene partner had laughed in his face.

That one experience is the reason Kurt still heard the mocking laughter in his nightmares, and in the build up to agreeing to take the part tonight. He doesn't think Rachel will laugh – she might have done when they were young and naive but not now – but the memory is too strong in his mind for comfort.

He controls his breathing, keeps as much of his panic in check as he can and says each line in turn as the scene progresses. Eventually Rachel turns around and Kurt knows he must look a state: paler than normal, his eyes wider than normal and a very slight tremble in his hand as he reaches out to take Rachel's.

"And do it with all thy heart," Kurt says, less than a minute away from their kiss now

Rachel squeezes his hand and looks at him with eyes that aren't Beatrice's. They are full of support and love for a friend, and it does comfort him somewhat. If the audience laughs because someone like Kurt is about to kiss someone like Rachel, then everything he's discovered tonight will be for nothing. And the opposite is true as well: but the positive thought isn't in Kurt's mind at the moment.

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest," Rachel says, flowing perfectly back into character.

Kurt tugs on their joined hands, pulling Rachel towards him and pressing his lips to hers in one smooth movement. Kissing Rachel – his friend for years – would be strange enough but it's on stage and in front of an audience. A hundred and more eyes are fixed on him and on Rachel and there are even a few cheers of delight as he lifts his lips away from Rachel's.

But, most importantly, there is no laughter. Rachel doesn't look like she's trying to hold in her giggles, there is no quiet hum of mirth coming from the eagerly watching audience: nothing else to remind him that he once kissed a scene partner during an audition and it led to disaster. His scene partner and the theater troupe auditioners must have been so wrong with their judgements and Kurt files that realization away.

Only more fuel to his fire that burns brightly with the truth that he really does belong on the stage.

* * *

For Kurt at least, the rest of the play flies by in blur. Almost like he has just woken up from a deep sleep and the rest of the play was as fast and as elaborate as a dream. Blaine says afterwards that he remembers every second of it and Rachel asks over and over again how Kurt could forget.

But it's not that he's forgotten the play, and what happened while he was on stage. It's that he became completely absorbed that all he was concentrating on was the progression of the storyline. He didn't even have to think about which of his lines came next: it flowed as easily as if he'd been practicing for years.

The one part of the play that Kurt doesn't remember in perfect clarity is when Blaine kneels before the masked Tina and asks for her hand in marriage. It was the first line spoken when testing the newly repaired automaton and there's a certain amount of poetry in seeing the line performed again, on stage with an adoring audience watching.

"Give me your hand before this holy friar," Blaine says, hand reaching out to Tina, "I am your husband if you like of me."

"And when I lived, I was your other wife;" Tina says, lifting her free hand to remove the sheer white veil – the exact same movement she'd done after being wound and awoken for the first time in years – "And when you loved, you were my other husband."

The audience is silent except for one girl, who gasps loudly with delight as Tina is revealed. It takes far too much willpower to stop Kurt from laughing along with the other people in the audience at the young girl's enjoyment.

"Another Hero!" Blaine says, still kneeling before Tina.

"Nothing certainer," Tina says, "One Hero died defiled: but I do live. And surely as I live, I am a maid."

Blaine stands and embraces her, smiling widely for the benefit of the audience over her shoulder. But as April, Jake and Unique carry on talking, Blaine changes where he's looking. He looks right at Kurt and the smile on his lips is more genuine. That moment isn't lost on Blaine, and when Kurt looks at Rachel a moment later, her soft smile tells him that the moment isn't lost on Rachel either.

* * *

The applause is deafening when the curtains lower for the final time, the tune from the band playing loudly to announce the end of the show. Kurt wonders whether dust and debris will be knocked from the ceiling because the theater hasn't had such raucous applause inside it for years. Certainly not since the theater was re-opened a year ago.

Rachel barely gives Kurt enough time to breathe after the last line before she's thrown her arms around his neck in a hug that threatens to squeeze the life from him.

"That was amazing, Kurt!" she says loudly right into his ear. "We saved our theater! And you were so great out there."

Kurt, riding off the emotions and adrenaline of the full play, laughs at her words. But he hugs her back just as fiercely, tucking his chin over her shoulder. She's right: the applause and the noise of cheering from the other side of the curtains makes it painfully obvious how much the people watching enjoyed the play. Kurt knows how the gossip mill works, especially in a town full of people who are visiting for the summer. Word of how much people enjoyed the opening night of the play in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion will spread through Lima and Kurt reckons that by tomorrow there will be people knocking on the door for tickets.

"I think I forgot how much I loved acting," he says, when Rachel has let him go and is staring at him with a wide smile. "Being on stage tonight has reminded me that my dream was acting; getting to Broadway; having my name be as popular as Starchild's is. It wasn't in a garage or in the wings."

Kurt feels someone take his hand and looks up to see Blaine's hand linked with his own. But it's Rachel who speaks, saying, "Good. You're Kurt Hummel and you deserve to be in the limelight. And now, you can be where you belong: on the stage, with me and with Blaine and with your automatons."

Kurt laughs at Rachel and gives her a hug again, not saying how much her support tonight has helped him. Kurt also squeezes Blaine's hand in gratitude and feels the familiar shiver run up his arm from their linked hands. He doesn't have a chance to say anything about how great Blaine was tonight because Mercedes whistles, gets their attention and pulls on the curtain cord to raise it again.

For a moment, Kurt can't believe his eyes. The people who have sat through nearly two hours of their acting are on their feet and applauding with such vigour that it must be hurting their hands.

Blaine bow and Rachel curtseys and it's only the fact that Kurt is still holding onto their hands that makes him bow as well. They have never had such applause before: Kurt can't remember a time when he ever saw an audience give the performers a standing ovation like this before. Everyone is on their feet, not just the enthusiastic or the family members in the audience. Everyone that Kurt can see has a wide smile on their face and some are even cheering as Rachel drags Kurt down for a second bow.

Blaine steps back then and applauds Kurt and Rachel himself. Kurt follows him for a moment and seeing the blinding smile on Blaine's face, shouting without words about how he feels about the show they staged for tonight.

The third time, Kurt manages to remember and dips a bow to the audience. Rachel goes so far as to raise their joined hands into the air and Kurt swears the applause increases in noise, although he hadn't thought that would have been possible. As the curtain drops for a second and final time, Rachel turns to Kurt and gives him another hug, squeezing just as tightly and saying something into his ear that he just can't hear over the cheering.

With the curtains down and staying closed, the applause dies away and a cacophony of voices fills the air. Kurt can hear the audience members move around, no doubt shuffling out of their rows to make their way into the aisle and out of the theater.

"Come on," Rachel says, her voice filled with contagious excitement. "We should go out there. Then they can tell us exactly how wonderful we were."

"Rachel I'm sure most of them just want to go home," Kurt says but he goes along with the plan and allows himself to be dragged out in front of the curtain again. He's right about most of the people slowly leaving the theater but there are still many people hanging around, talking to their neighbors and waiting patiently for something.

Kurt spots Dad and Carole amongst the people waiting even before he's dragged down the steps from the stage to the front of house. Rachel leads the way over to them, beaming at her fathers who have been sitting with Dad and Carole for the play.

"Sweetheart, that was-" one of the Mr Berrys says but Kurt doesn't hear the rest of it because his Dad has thrown his arms around him in a large hug, squeezing him tightly in what must be a fashion for Kurt tonight.

"Kurt you were amazing up there," Dad says quietly into his ear.

"Thanks Dad," Kurt says, his voice muffled because his face is buried in Dad's shoulder.

Not letting him go, Dad says, "I always knew you were meant for that. You're something fantastic kiddo, not someone meant to stay tinkering in a garage."

Kurt pulls away from the hug but not so far away that he steps out of Dad's arms. He's twenty-five but there's something he can't stop loving about Dad's hugs. "What?" he asks.

"Seeing you up there," Dad says, his voice only loud enough to carry to Kurt and Carole, "it's the first time you've really been happy in years. That's where you belong, Kurt, whether here or far away in New York. Now after tonight, I don't want to see you back in the shop unless it's an occasional day helping your old man or fixing those automatons. Got it?"

Dad's face is a myriad of emotions, ranging from pride to joy, from utter seriousness to an element of joking. Kurt can't help but laugh and hug him again, saying, "Okay Dad."

Then there's Carole to hug, who whispers tearfully in his ear that Finn would have loved to have been here to see that. Kurt stays in her embrace for a while after that, not just to have a long hug from a proud stepmother but because he too imagines his stepbrother cheering in the front row with their parents.

Dad, Carole and the Mr Berrys start loudly discussing the play, Rachel tucked under one of her father's arms and Kurt standing next to Dad. They praise everything from the background sets to the costumes for the automatons to their acting.

"Mr Hummel?" a familiar voice calls, taking Kurt's attention from the conversation. He turns around to see Isabelle Wright standing behind him, with Starchild standing beside her.

Kurt's breathe catches in his throat at being so close to one of the most modern household names in theater but he doesn't noticeably falter as he says, "Miss Wright. I hope the play lived up to your expectations."

Isabelle laughs and says, "Oh it was better, Kurt. You were wonderful." She looks over to Rachel to include her in the conversation as well. "As were you, Miss Berry."

"Thank you Miss Wright," Rachel says, "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Isabelle turns to Starchild next to her, who steps closer as she introduces him. "I haven't introduced my friend, Elliott Gilbert. Elliott, this is Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry."

Starchild, or Elliott, leans in and offers his hand first to Kurt to shake and then to Rachel. He's beaming at them both, eyes surrounded in dark eyeliner but they still sparkle. "You were both fantastic up there," he says after shaking Rachel's hand. He looks from Kurt to Rachel and then back to Kurt as he speaks. "I love how you used the automatons. I've only seen plays where automatons were used as the chorus, never as main parts. It was so refreshing."

Kurt doesn't correct Starchild's incorrect assumption that they used the automatons like that for a reason. And Rachel doesn't either, saying, "Thank you. We were very lucky to have so many so that we could do just that."

"Where did you find them?" he asks, sounding genuinely interested in the answer.

"They came with the theater," Rachel says cryptically. "Kurt fixed them up and takes care of them."

Starchild looks at Kurt again, still beaming and says, "I'm really impressed. I hope you continue to use them like that: it'll get you a lot of audiences, especially if you tour in New York." He shares a look with Isabelle and then says, "I know I hope to see one of your next plays."

"Oh god," Kurt says, taken aback at hearing someone like Starchild say that. He would have been amazed to hear anyone say that, but those words coming from a Broadway legend seems almost too good to be true. "Thank you so much. We- we'll keep you informed."

"Please do," Starchild says and nods to both Kurt and Rachel again. He turns to look at Isabelle and offers her his arm. "Shall we?" he says and then turns to the group again after Isabelle has slipped her arm through the crook of his elbow. "Excuse us."

"Kurt, we just had _Starchild_ compliment our play," Rachel says, coming over to take Kurt's arm after Starchild and Isabelle have left.

"I know," Kurt says in a breathless tone. But he's in as much of a state of shock as Rachel is. "You were right though. This has so saved our theater."

Rachel laughs loudly, gaining the attention of the remaining people in the theater. Most of them change their direction, walking back towards the stage to shake Kurt's and Rachel's hands, to congratulate them on the performance and to say how they'll recommend the show to their friends as soon as they get home.

Kurt must have shaken over a hundred hands by the time the theater is quiet. Dad, Carole, Mr and Mr Berry and the band members are still there, talking about the evening while they either pack up their instruments or help pick up any stray belongings or lost tickets left behind by the general audience.

For a brief moment, as he looks around the theater again and sees the aftermath of what has been one of the best evenings of his life, Kurt wonders if he's still asleep. If he'll wake up in a moment and it'll be the gray morning that is was earlier and everything that has just happened will be a dream. But he waits, hears the curtain rising and sees that Blaine, Mercedes and Sam have been busy tidying up the stage, and he doesn't wake up. Rachel surprises him by throwing her arms around his waist for what must be well over the tenth time that night and he doesn't wake up.

He even surreptitiously pinches his arm and the small amount of pain shoots through his body and he still doesn't wake up.

Kurt's smile is wide and shows off all his teeth as the truth finally takes root. This hasn't been a dream, he really played the part of Benedick to perfection and he and Rachel really have just saved their theater.

* * *

The following morning dawns the complete opposite to yesterday; bright blue skies, a warm sun and not a cloud in sight. Kurt arrives at the theater an hour later than he had yesterday and with none of the emotional baggage of the last few months, let alone weeks.

Blaine arrives soon after, his hands tucked into the pockets of his navy pants and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal his forearms.

"Hi Kurt," Blaine says cheerfully as he walks into the backstage area where Kurt is, already winding the automatons to make sure that nothing was damaged during last night's performance. Jesse is still in a corner, slumped in the chair like a man asleep. "Have you recovered from last night?"

Kurt laughs, steps away from Kitty and dusts his hands on a nearby cloth. Kitty immediately starts walking around the room, joining Tina and Rory in moving from one wall to the other. "Just about," he says as Blaine walks across the room to join him. "It all seems really strange that that happened yesterday. Like it happened to someone else, or something."

"Well it wasn't a dream," Blaine says with a shrug, "because then I had the same one. You really were great out there. Those people at your auditions didn't know what they were talking about."

"Apparently not," Kurt says with a laugh. Running footsteps stops him from saying anything else and he's surprised when it's Rachel who runs into the room, a rolled up newspaper in her hands. Rachel hasn't been in the theater this early for months now.

"I'm glad you're both here," Rachel says as soon as she sees them, not even bothering to greet either Kurt or Blaine. She shakes out the paper, the rustling gaining the curiosity of the automatons, and then looks up to say, "There's a review of our play in here."

"Already?" Blaine asks as he and Kurt scramble to stand next to Rachel to read the article over her shoulder.

Rather than answering, Rachel shakes out the newspaper again and begins to read the article in the latter half of the paper. "_When the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion opened last year for the first time in twenty, nothing happened. The opening went unnoticed, the first play's opening night drew a crowd of less than thirty people and I don't even remember what that particular play was._

"_But last night's performance, the opening night of Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing_was something indeed. I'd rather call it 'Much Ado About Everything' because last night there really was everything. _

"_Staged by the new owners, Miss Rachel Berry and Mr Kurt Hummel, the play mostly featured clockwork automatons – self-operating robots – in the main roles. But by the intermission, I'd certainly forgotten that I was watching a cast filled with copper, brass and tin robots rather than real humans. Where automatons like that came from, I have no idea. I haven't seen automatons like that before; ones that move so smoothly and are better actors than many humans we pay to see on stage._

"_The human component came from Miss Berry and Mr Hummel in the iconic roles of Beatrice and Benedick, and Mr Blaine Anderson as Claudio. Mr Anderson had the troublesome task of acting opposite an automaton playing Hero. And I've watched many a human pair fail so completely at capturing the love at first sight for the couple. But I do have to agree with the little girl sat next to me who was crying with how in love Claudio was with Hero. It was so easy to forget that Hero was essentially a lifeless robot controlled by clockwork and that's because of Mr Anderson. I can only congratulate him on such hard breakout role because whatever he did worked perfectly last night._

"_But the real stars of last night's performance were Benedick and Beatrice, as the British Bard intended. One thing that was definitely going for them was that both parts of the couple were human so they played off each other's strengths and adapted easily and effortlessly to the whims of the audience. Mr Hummel and Miss Berry have added two new names to the short list of people who have played Benedick and Beatrice well but they have made the list without any reservations. Their roles were breakout roles too, but I have a hard time believing that these two haven't acted together before last night. They can own a theater, stage a show and star in it without a single flaw: what more can we expected from Hummel and Berry?_

"_The audience was enthralled, although that might be because they've never seen so many automatons together in a room before. And have there been better performances of the Bard's plays? Probably. But I can only say that I look forward to the next plays that will come out of the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, and ask them why it took them a year before producing a play. _

"_Get down to see Miss Berry, Mr Hummel and Mr Anderson while they're still in Lima because the way last night's performance went, they won't be around here for long. They'll be handed one-way tickets on the fastest airship straight to Broadway. And they'll be taking their automatons with them_."

Rachel stops reading and expertly folds up the newspaper in half, and then half again. She looks from Blaine, who is staring at the space where she'd been holding the paper, to Kurt, who is barely blinking as he gazes at the automatons.

"Will one of you say something?" she demands after the silence is a little too long. Kurt is in a state of shock. Again he briefly wonders if he's dreaming. A review that's full of praise like that is one thing he wasn't anticipating: if he's honest, Kurt hadn't even considered what a reviewer might think of their play.

Blaine finds his voice first. "That's probably the best thing that could have happened," he says, finally looking up at Rachel and then focusing on Kurt. "A good review like that and even people who haven't heard by the gossip will want to know more."

"Exactly!" Rachel says. She then turns around to look at Kurt, as if demanding a reply.

"I didn't even expect to be reviewed," Kurt says, still in shock that they've had a review that can only be described as raving. That's the sort of reviews that are found about professional plays in theaters that seat over five hundred people. "That's better than we could have hoped."

"And you have to promise me Kurt," Rachel says, "that you won't think you aren't meant for the stage anymore. It's obvious that you are; it was obvious last night and it's just as obvious this morning. You belong up on stage. You belong up there with me!"

Kurt laughs, throwing one arm around Rachel's shoulders to give her a hug. Rachel reaches out and draws Blaine into the embrace, the three of them together after reading a review that is beyond their wildest dreams. Kurt can feel the heat from Blaine's arm against the small of his back and he leans just a little closer to Blaine, grasping the back of his shirt to help. It's nice with Blaine's arm around his back.

The moment is broken by Tina, who walks to the door of the room and seems to peer out curiously. As the automaton shouldn't be able to do much more than say her lines and respond to the other actors, the fact that she is looking around outside causes first Kurt, then Rachel and Blaine, to break away from their hug and look out of the door.

Nothing is outside but Kurt hears a faint knock. Mumbling about who could be knocking at the door of the theater at such an early hour, Kurt walks back to the front door through the backstage area and the front of house. Blaine is right on his heels and Rachel is not fair behind, having stopped to force Tina back inside the room and close the door to keep the automatons inside.

Kurt opens one of the two doors and his eyebrows snap together when he sees who is standing at the threshold. Marley Rose, the girl who auditioned for him and Rachel months ago and who they have originally cast to play opposite Blaine as Hero, is standing with her hands linked together in front of her and a shy smile on her face.

"I know I've missed this play," she says, "but is there any way I could audition early for your next one?"

However, Kurt doesn't reply immediately. His eyes are fixed on the crowd of people behind Marley, all talking amongst themselves but occasionally looking up at the door. Kurt can tell they've all seen the door open because each person waiting impatiently in line is now dancing on their toes, where they were standing still when Kurt first opened the door.

"What is everyone else doing here?" Rachel asks, also looking over the crowd of people outside their theater.

Marley looks over her shoulder and then back at Kurt, Rachel and Blaine. "I think most of them are here to buy tickets for the next shows," she says, "but I heard a few more people talking about auditions."

It's been less than a day, just over twelve hours, since their play finished. And now they are looking at an ever-growing crowd of interested people, whether for tickets or for potential auditions. Kurt can't believe it. He knew word spreads quickly, especially in a small town like Lima. But this is fast moving information if so many people have been spurred on to buy tickets as soon as they can.

"Well," Rachel says, looking up at Kurt and resting a hand on his arm to gain his attention, "we can stage a play without worrying about the number of roles we'll be able to fill now."

_That's one way to put it_, Kurt thinks. Then something occurs to him, born by the words of encouragement spoken by Starchild.

Rachel starts by saying, "We can always do _A Midsummer's Night Dream_. That's an audience favorite, whether rich or not, and it's got a larger cast list than _Much Ado About Nothing_.

"I don't know," Kurt says, a note of teasing in his voice. He looks down at Rachel, who is still resting her hand on his arm. "I think we should stage our favorite musical instead."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "What happened to no musicals until we could pay our rent for two years straight?" she asks, although her voice contains excitement at the prospect.

Kurt shrugs. "We've got Starchild talking about us to the aristocrats," he says, "and a rave review in the newspaper. I think it's probably time we start educating the rich about the delights of musical theater."

Rachel actually squeaks with happiness and squeezes Kurt's arm with her hand. She turns away from the door, murmuring to herself under her breath. "I'll be Elphaba of course, and Kurt could be Fiyero. But which part could Blaine play. Maybe Boq?"

Blaine reaches over and slips his hand into Kurt's free one. "I'll be Boq in _Wicked_," he says quietly in Kurt's ear. A shiver of happiness runs through Kurt as Blaine recognizes the names of the characters and correctly guesses his favorite musical: or it's a shiver from Blaine's breath against his skin, "As long as it's opposite your Fiyero."

"Blaine," Kurt murmurs in reply and he can't help the blush that blooms on his cheeks. He looks into Blaine's shining amber eyes – eyes that he can easily get lost in and will happily do so for hours – and wonders if the blush on Blaine's cheeks is because of what he said or the very slight breeze that is blowing into the doorway from outside. Rather than say anything else, Kurt squeezes his hand and knocks into Blaine's shoulder with his own.

Turning to the group of people outside, Kurt raises his voice and says, "Can I have everyone who wants to purchase tickets for _Much Ado About Nothing_ in a separate line to those wanting to audition. We'll take your names and details to contact you about future auditions, and then we'll start selling tickets for tonight's show and the rest of them."

The people gathered in the cobbled square immediately start to move, forming two lines that don't seem to end. Kurt peers over the heads of the people first in line and can't see the last people in line. With a smile first to Blaine and then to Marley, still at the start of the line for future auditionees, Kurt begins to take their names down.

It's almost like that for past year – even for the past four years – Kurt has been in a limbo. Some place in theater hell where the curtain is always hovering just above the floor of the stage, never rising and so the show can never really start. But as Kurt writes each name on the ever-growing list of auditionees, he can feel that the curtain has risen and that this must be the opening act.

Something that's been a long time coming.

* * *

_Author's note: I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this! Please check out the artwork for this story, made by two amazing artists freakingpotter and keep-frozen, that I look at and am still speechless at today. They can be found at the masterpost on my tumblr (sundaysalvation) or my LJ (sundayrainbows). _

_I'd really love to hear what you thought and thank you for reading!_


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